
HER SUMMER A®8S 
A GIRLS* CAMP 


LESLIE WARREN 






















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Class_____ 

Book . W S' • _ 

Copyright N° r^o~ 

O-Ap y 2, 

COPYRIGHT DKPOSm 












SCATTER 

Her Summer at a Girls’ Camp 















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“Candor!” she gasped. “You’ve been in Candor, too!” 

—Page 161 















SCATTER 

Her Summer at a Girls’ Camp 


By 

LESLIE WARREN 


Illustrated by 

MARY LUDLUM DAVIS 



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BOSTON 

LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD COMPANY 

A 


t L v.'iM 2 \ 












Copyright, 1932, 

By Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co. 


All Rights Reserved 


Scatter 



Printed in U. S. A. 



54853 




For Beaver Camp 
on Its Twenty--first Birthday 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

I 

Up at Panther 

• 


• 


PAGE 

11 

II 

Man o’ War 

• 


• 


35 

III 

Five Thousand Dollars Reward 


52 

IV 

Without Fungi 

• 




81 

V 

Tin Tub . 

• 




87 

VI 

Without Fungi Again 




104 

VII 

The Prize Calf 

• 




114 

VIII 

Nirvana 

• 




134 

IX 

The Seventh Veil 

• 




170 

X 

Happy Jack 

• 




196 

XI 

Minor Races 

• 




218 

XII 

Caterpillars 

• 




240 

XIII 

Tournament 

• 




257 

XIV 

The Banner 

• 

• 

• 


285 


7 






ILLUSTRATIONS 

“ Candor! ” she gasped. “ You’ve been 

in Candor, too! ” (Page 161) Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 

“Attention! Attention!” I signalled 78 

Scatter shook hands ceremoniously 102 

I was afraid she was going to fly at Jan 230 


9 








SCATTER 

Her Summer at a Girls’ Camp 
CHAPTER I 

UP AT PANTHER 

“ Well, Frosty,” remarked Scatter, my red¬ 
headed roommate, thoughtfully, “ it’s very 
comforting to think that we have only two 
things to do this summer.” 

She was sitting cross-legged on her trunk, 
gazing benignly upon me where I sat on the 
floor of our Loon Attic, sorting out my goods 
and chattels before stowing them away neatly 
as became a Camper and a Panther. We had 
arrived at Camp the day before for our third, 
and probably our last, summer and were still 
in the process of getting settled. 

“ Two things? ” I inquired, sitting back on 
my heels the better to cogitate. “ I can think 
of only one thing myself, and that is for the 
Raggeds to beat the Hatchets and bring the 
banner over to Loon Attic. And I suppose 

11 


12 SCATTER 

that that’s one of the things on your mind, too. 
So what might the other be, O wise one? ” 

“ Explore Nirvana and solve the mystery of 
its opium-eating inmate, of course,” Scatter 
answered scathingly. “ For two whole years 
he has lived upon that lone Point of his, unin¬ 
vestigated and aloof. It’s time he was tracked 
to his lair and explained.” 

Up at Panther, let me hasten to remark, the 
mystery of the “ Opium-eater ” had troubled 
us ever since we had first arrived at Camp. 
The nickname was an invention of Scatter’s, 
derived from the peaceful title blazoned large 
above the front door of the man’s tiny abode— 
“ Nirvana.” 

Aside from Maryld, the other girls’ camp on 
Clearwater, he was the only inhabitant of our 
lake, and, as a neighbor, he was a total and 
complete loss. His Point was only half a mile 
from our bathing-beach, but we never caught 
more than a fleeting glimpse of him by day 
and an occasional flash of his wandering 
lantern by night. 

We knew that he had a Chinese servant, for 
we had seen the man buying supplies at the 
general store down in the village. But he 


UP AT PANTHER 13 

talked English only with clucks of his tongue 
and pointings of his fingers, and there was 
nothing to be learned from that. 

Our Camp Management had always pro¬ 
tected this strange hermit on the Point from 
intrusion on our part, although they never 
would explain him to us. They merely smiled 
sweetly and told us never to bother the man on 
the Point, with that detached air that older 
people put on when they are afraid of telling 
more than they would have us know. Even 
Mr. Milton, the postmaster at the store, pro¬ 
fessed to know nothing of the man or his 
habits, be they honest and aboveboard or sin¬ 
ister and dark. 

“ Quiet-spoken feller,” he said non-commit- 
tally on the one occasion when Scatter man¬ 
aged to wiggle herself far enough from all 
chaperoning Counsellors to question him. 
“ No, ma’am, he ain’t a native of these parts 
that I know of. No, he don’t get no mail here 
and he ain’t never ast for any. Likely he goes 
to East Fellowship for it. It’s nearer his 
place.” 

Of course Scatter had always been all agog 
to ferret out what there was to ferret about 


14 SCATTER 

the lone inhabitant of the Point. She is never 
happy if there is anything in her neighborhood 
that she doesn’t know about, and this mystery 
had baffled her for two whole years. There¬ 
fore she was determined to solve it this third 
year before leaving Camp for good and all. 
As for me, I considered the matter judicially 
before committing myself to extensive detec¬ 
tive operations. 

“ I don’t know,” I said at last. “ Of course 
it would be nice to know all about the Opium- 
eater, and I wouldn’t mind going sleuthing 
with you once in a while, Scatter, as long as it 
didn’t interfere with the Raggeds. But we 
simply must win the banner this year, and 
that’s not going to be easy with Happy Jack 
determined to be a Ragged and all. Of course 
there’s you and Koko and Janice and Mary. 
You’re all good athletes, but the Hatchets have 
good ones, too. Sally and Elsie and Peggy, 
for instance.” 

Scatter shook her red head vigorously. She 
had had her hair cut just before starting for 
Camp that year, and her gorgeous halo of red 
curls was very intriguing. 

“ Certainly we’ve got to beat the Hatchets, 


UP AT PANTHER 15 

Frosty. That comes first of all, of course, and 
we have a splendid chance with you for Cap¬ 
tain and so many of the old girls back. Oh, 
we’ll win in spite of Happy Jack. She will 
have to be a Ragged, but there are lots of 
things that she can do well. Swimming and 
paddling and nature work, anyhow.” 

“ I know that,” I answered. “ But it does 
seem hard on the Raggeds. I like Happy 
Jack as well as you do, but it would be better 
for the Ragged side to have a good lusty base¬ 
ball player in her place—the kind she used to 
be before she was smashed up in that auto¬ 
mobile accident. In fact, I can’t quite see why 
a lame girl like that ever wanted to come to an 
athletic camp like Panther.” 

“Be fair, now, Frosty, be fair,” warned 
Scatter soothingly. “ Happy Jack is a nice 
girl and you know it, and her heart will break 
if she isn’t made a Ragged next week. She 
came here because she’s a friend of ours and in 
our Troop and all.” 

“ That’s all right,” I hastened to assure her. 
“ Don’t get excited. Happy Jack is going to 
be a Ragged. I’m just wishing that she’d never 
had that accident that ruined her leg, that’s 



16 SCATTER 

all. They say that she used to be a perfectly 
marvelous baseball player before she was in 
the smash-up, and I’d like it if she was still.” 

“ Well, she isn’t, and if you don’t like that, 
Frosty, you know what you can do,” responded 
Scatter brightly. Then she reverted to her pet 
obsession again. 

“ Frosty, listen to me. I have a queer idea 
that the Opium-eater is going to become 
heavily involved in the fate of the Ragged team 
this summer. Laugh if you want to, but I 
honestly feel that it is most important for us 
to find out all that we can about him as soon 
as possible. I’m positive that he is going to 
bring us luck. Just you wait and see.” 

I didn’t laugh. There is never any use in 
laughing at Scatter when she becomes involved 
in an idea, and I realized that, as long as she 
felt that she had to sleuth the Opium-eater in 
the interests of the Ragged team, the only 
thing to do was to let her sleuth, aiding and 
abetting her in her quest in order that it might 
be over the sooner and the field left fallow for 
new ideas to sprout. However, I don’t think 
much of hunches and superstitions myself, and 
I told her so. 


UP AT PANTHER 17 

“ He may be an opium-eater,” I said firmly, 
“ only I don’t really think he is. And he may 
be II Duce himself, or he may be the Czar of 
all the Russias escaped from the murderous 
Soviets, for all I know, but I’ll never believe 
for one minute that he is involved in the affairs 
of the Ragged team in any way at all. If we 
win the banner this summer, it won’t be by any 
opium-eating tricks, but by our playing—you 
and Koko and Janice and Mary and me and 
all the other Raggeds—playing as hard as we 
can on land and lake, and a little harder than 
that, too, to make up for the handicap of 
Happy Jack on the side.” 

Our Panther Camp is divided into two sides, 
Hatchet and Ragged, named for the moun¬ 
tains on the other side of Clearwater from 
Camp. The Hatchet color is green and the 
Ragged color is red, and all summer long we 
compete in every kind of sport for the banner 
that is awarded to the winning team at the 
end of the season. Every single girl in Camp, 
from the youngest and frailest up, has a chance 
to help her side, for progress in tennis and 
swimming and nature work and crafts counts 
just as much as winning the tennis champion- 


18 SCATTER 

ship or making a record swim. Therefore no 
one ever feels left out; we all pull together for 
the side as hard as we can, and it’s no end 
exciting. 

The banner itself doesn’t look like much. 
It’s only a faded old blue and white flag with 
“ Panther Camp ” on it, and it hangs beside the 
door of the Captain whose side was victorious 
the year before. Of course that year it was 
beside Sally Robbins’ door over at Shack One, 
and Scatter and I felt bad to see it there, for 
it would have been outside our own Loon Attic 
if we had only managed to earn a few more 
points the year before. 

Probably people wonder why we all want to 
win that banner for our side so much. It cer¬ 
tainly means a lot to us Panthers. All the 
spirit and tradition of our Camp center around 
it, and it is the main reason why we old Camp¬ 
ers go back year after year the way we do. 

Each of our sides has a Captain, and it hap¬ 
pened that year that I had been made Captain 
of the Raggeds. Of course I was too thrilled 
and pleased for words. But I was scared, too. 
In the two years that Scatter and I had been 
roommates in Loon Attic, our dressing-room 


UP AT PANTHER 19 

in Shack Two, the Hatchets had won the 
banner both times, so it was frightfully im¬ 
portant to us that third year that the Raggeds 
win again as they used to in the old days when 
Miss Palmer, our Water Sports Counsellor, 
was a Camper and Ragged Captain, too. I 
had voted for Scatter for Captain, and I 
honestly felt that she would make a better Cap¬ 
tain than I. She is so red-headed and stub¬ 
born. Nothing ever baffles her. 

“ Never mind, Frosty. I’ll be your little 
lieutenant,” she told me joyously after the 
elections were over and we had returned to 
Loon Attic to get on with our unpacking. 
“ This is going to be the best summer yet.” 

Scatter’s real name is Sarah C. Atwell, and 
she has been my best friend ever since I found 
her up the pear-tree in our back yard at home, 
placidly eating pears and throwing the cores 
at my Airedale, Guffin, who was having hys¬ 
terics at the foot of the tree. She had come 
to live with her aunt, whose back yard joins 
our back yard. Her mother had died a year 
or two before, and her father, who was a mis¬ 
sionary bishop in Siam or Ceylon or some such 
outlandish place, had found himself utterly 


20 SCATTER 

unable to cope with his younger red-headed 
daughter. So he shipped her back home to his 
sister to have her educated in the States. We 
were in the same class at the old Oak Tree 
School and in the same Girl Scout Troop, and 
for two years we had roomed together at Pan¬ 
ther along with Margery Woodward, another 
girl from our town. 

Marge was a Hatchet and a morose kind of 
girl, not easy to live with, but we were used to 
her after two years together. 

She came lounging into Loon Attic in time 
for the tail-end of our talk about the Opium- 
eater. 

“What is the point? ” she inquired flatly. 
“ He’s nothing but a man in a cabin on Clear¬ 
water. There’s no mystery about that that I 
can see.” 

Marge never can see the point to anything. 
Of course she is an awfully good sort and a fine 
scorer for the Hatchets, but at times she’s a 
dreadful wet blanket. 

“ Mystery? ” flared Scatter, insulted that 
the pet figment of her imagination should be 
so flatly trodden upon. “ Don’t you call it a 
mystery, Marge Woodward, when a person 


21 


UP AT PANTHER 

lives all alone on a point in a lake miles from 
anywhere, in a tiny house called Nirvana, with 
a flagpole in his yard [personally I think that 
Scatter was largely attracted to this mysterious 
character by the tall and barren flagpole be¬ 
side his door-step], and is never seen on the 
lake by day in any sort of a conveyance, but 
waits for nightfall before setting forth to 
roam? Many a time we’ve seen a lantern leav¬ 
ing his place and wavering about the lake after 
dark. And you know that as well as I do, 
Marge Woodward.” 

Marge grunted. 

“ Why shouldn’t he go out at night if he he 
so minded? ” she asked. “ There’s nothing 
mysterious in that.” 

Scatter ignored her loftily. 

“ A character-” She caught her breath 

and warmed to her subject. “ A character who 
is never seen fair and square like the natives 
around here. If we paddle past his Point, he’s 
always slamming the door behind himself or 
vanishing around Nirvana. And besides that, 
Marge Woodward, if he isn’t a mysterious 
character, do you think that the Management 
would bother to put their heaviest ban on his 



22 SCATTER 

Point? ‘ Never land at Nirvana/ they decree. 
Well, we never do, but no one ever tells us not 
to go calling on the Holts or on Mrs. Phillips, 
do they? Or not to eat cake at the Foggs’? 

“ Well, then, if this Opium-eater wasn’t a 
mystery, we’d be allowed to go and call on 
him, too, and ask him for doughnuts and play 
with his offspring and his fuzzy kittens. And 
mark my words, Marge Woodward, before 
this summer is over, I am going to find out why 
we can’t and what he is up to on that Point of 
his and,” she added under her breath, “ what 
sort of magic charm he will lay on the Ragged 
team.” 

I was intrigued by Scatter’s enthusiasm, but 
Marge merely grunted again. 

“ I can’t see why you call him ‘ Opium- 
eater,’ ” she remarked blightingly. “ How do 
you know he is one? ” 

Scatter glowered at her savagely and began 
to twist her forelock on her finger, a sure sign 
of mental agitation with her. 

“ What else would he be, living on a point 
and naming himself Nirvana? ” she demanded 
firmly. 

“ He might be a bootlegger,” answered 


UP AT PANTHER 


23 

Marge, a lofty flight of the imagination for 
her, “or a miser or ... or something.” 

“Something else!” jeered Scatter relent¬ 
lessly. “ Bootleggers, my good woman, do not 
bury themselves on forlorn points in the north 
woods. They seek the haunts of man, where 
gold is rife. And misers do not, as a rule, have 
Chinese servants attached to their persons—or 
flagpoles in their yards, either.” 

Marge shrugged her shoulders, unconvinced. 

“ Now I’ll tell you something that’s really 
true,” she said in the important tone of one 
who has news. “You know that new Coun¬ 
sellor, Miss Pond? ” 

“ Yes,” replied Scatter, “ the funny-looking 
one who has taken Miss Barber’s place at craft 
work.” 

“ Well,” said Marge with tantalizing slow¬ 
ness, “ guess who she is.” 

“ She’s Miss Pond, the new craft teacher,” 
responded Scatter brightly. “ The only Coun¬ 
sellor we’ve ever had who is not a Panther, 
born and bred.” 

“ She’s far more than that,” answered 
Marge. “ She’s none other than the sister of 
the famous Commander Pond himself.” 


SCATTER 


24 

“ Marge! ” Scatter’s eyes grew as round as 
saucers, and her mouth flew wide open. 
“ Honestly, Marge, you’re fooling me. Do 
you mean to say that that new Counsellor is 
the sister of Commander William Pond, the 
navy airman who rescued those castaways at 
the South Pole last winter? ” 

Marge nodded. 

“ She surely is. Mother Panther told me so 
herself.” 

Scatter was dumbfounded, and so was I, if 
the truth were told. To think that the sister 
of the nation’s hero should be our craft teacher 
right here in Camp! 

We had both been thrilled by the reports of 
the Commander’s daring exploits, but Scatter, 
particularly, was simply carried away by them. 

“ Why, Frosty,” she had said to me in the 
spring, when we had read of his all but unbe¬ 
lievable courage and self-sacrifice, “ I think he 
is the greatest hero in history, and I am sure 
that he is the bravest. Wouldn’t it be wonder¬ 
ful to see him sometime? ” 

“ Is there any chance of his coming over here 
to see his sister? ” I asked Marge breathlessly. 

Marge shook her head. 


1 


UP AT PANTHER 


25 

“ I don’t know,” she said. “ I shouldn’t 
think there would be, though,” and she stalked 
out to the sleeping-porch to put an extra 
blanket on her bed. 

“ Well,” said I thoughtfully to Scatter, “ I 
think that you might well make that your third 
objective for the summer—to meet and speak 
with Commander Pond, if possible.” 

Scatter laughed that thought away lightly. 

“ My Frosty,” she said, “ things like that 
don’t happen. They’re too good to be true and 
far more than any one would dare to make an 
objective for any summer.” She dismissed the 
subject for the time being and returned to our 
former discussion. 

“ And now how about the sleuthing of 
Nirvana? Will you join me on the quest for 
the good of the Raggeds, or shall I have to ask 
some one else? ” 

“ Oh, I’ll go with you,” I promised her, 
“ just as soon as we get the sides chosen and 
everything is in good running order.” 

I honestly was thrilled with her enthusiasm 
and was ready to start with her on the quest 
at once, only Ragged-Hatchet plans could not 
be interfered with, and for a while we were too 


26 


SCATTER 


busy to do more than watch that alluring Point 
from a distance and wonder about its myste¬ 
rious inhabitant. 

The slogan of Panther Camp is “ Busy 
every minute,” and I don’t mind saying that 
that slogan is lived up to under such heavy 
Counsellor supervision as to make independent 
detective operations almost an impossibility. 

The first week in Camp each year is spent 
in trying out the new girls in all our sports 
and pastimes, so that they may be chosen 
Ragged or Hatchet and the sides kept just as 
even as it is possible to make them. It is quite 
a hard job, for lots of girls come to Camp with 
the set idea that they are going to be either 
Ragged or Hatchet because their older sisters 
were or their best friends are or something like 
that, and of course those preferences have to be 
considered, as well as athletic ability, when we 
Captains and the Counsellors choose the two 
sides. 

Well, we worked away at that job all that 
Saturday afternoon, trying to make things 
come out right. There was an uneven number 
of girls in Camp that summer, and it worked 
out so that the Hatchets had one more girl 


UP AT PANTHER 27 

than we did, and of course we had Happy 
Jack. We simply had to have her. 

She had come to our town only a few months 

•/ 

after the automobile accident that had twisted 
and shortened one leg and turned her from a 
splendid athlete into a limping cripple. When 
she first arrived at our school, she wasn’t so 
easy to get along with, not being used to her 
changed self yet. But eventually she joined 
our Girl Scout Troop and entered into the 
other things that we were doing—that is, she 
entered everything that she was able to—and 
showed such marvelous spirit that she soon 
earned for herself the nickname of Happy 
Jack, although her real name was Eleanor 
Jackson. She had come up to Panther be¬ 
cause Scatter and I were so keen about the 
place, and of course she was determined to be 
a Ragged. I was glad to have her on our side 
because I liked her and all, but I did feel 
that we, rather than the Hatchets, ought to 
have the extra girl. 

“ I know you ought,” admitted Miss Mason. 
She is the physical director at our Oak Tree 
School at home and is our Girl Scout Captain, 
too. At Camp she is the Senior Counsellor, 



28 


SCATTER 


and every one likes her a lot. “ I know you 
ought to have the extra girl, but if we give you 
any of these girls who don’t care which side 
they are on, the Raggeds will be much stronger 
than the Hatchets, and you Raggeds wouldn’t 
like that any better than the Hatchets would. 
It really isn’t unfair this way. Happy Jack 
is good at some things, you know, even if she 
is lame.” 

“ Oh, I know that,” I said wearily. It was 
a hot day, and the session had been a long one. 
“ And I’m sure that it’s all right if you say 
so, Captain Mason.” 

Of course she wasn’t a Captain at Camp, but 
the title clung to her from Girl Scouting at 
home. 

At that moment Miss Palmer returned from 
an errand at the Camp House. She was our 
Shack Counsellor and the very Panther who 
had once been Ragged Captain herself. 

“ I have news for you,” she said cheerily. 
“ There’s another girl coming up to-morrow 
night. Mother Panther got a telegram about 
her this afternoon. The Raggeds could have 
her, and that would even up the sides.” 

“ What kind of girl is she, Miss Palmer? ” 


UP AT PANTHER 29 

Sally Robbins and I asked the question in a 
duet. 

“ Her name is Ellen Hunt-Crosby,” replied 
Miss Palmer with a twinkle in her eye. “ She 
.comes from New York, is fabulously rich, and 
is being parted from her family for the first 
time in her life.” 

I groaned. 

“ Very well, I’ll take her,” I answered, “ if 
Sally thinks that’s fair.” 

“ Well, I don’t want her,” said Sally with 
firm decision. 

So that was that, and I sought Scatter to 
tell her all about it. I was troubled about the 
unknown Ellen Hunt-Crosby, and I felt the 
need of being soothed. 

But when I found Scatter, she was even 
more troubled than I. 

“ It’s Happy Jack,” she told me, twisting 
her forelock viciously. “ She’s packing to go 
home. You’re the only one who can stop her, 
Frosty, and you had better go to her quickly 
before the .Management hears about it.” 

“ What’s the matter with her? ” I asked. 
“ Homesick? ” 

Scatter shook her head. 


SCATTER 


30 

“ She’s realized what an athletic sort of place 
this is, and she’s trying to get away before she 
makes a mess of things.” 

I looked at Scatter with my mouth wide 
open. 

“ Doesn’t she like it here? ” I demanded in¬ 
credulously. 

The bare idea of any one’s trying to leave 
Panther before she was forcibly evicted at the 
end of August was as strange as an unknown 
language to me. 

“ Oh, Frosty!” Scatter was exasperated, 
and she showed it. “ Can’t you see for your¬ 
self that she simply adores it here? But she 
knows that she’s bound to be a Ragged, and 
she knows how frightfully we want to win and 
what it means to you as Captain and all, and 
she’s running away before she becomes a drag 
on the team. You are the only person that can 
make her change her mind, and you had better 
go down to Shack Three right away and tell 
her how much we are counting on her swim¬ 
ming and paddling, before she goes away for 
good.” 

“ Oh, Scat! ” I groaned in abject terror. “ I 
can’t talk to people when they are tempera- 


UP AT PANTHER 31 

mental. You go! You’re . . . you’re so 

fluent. You always know just what to say. 
And you’re always trying to lift up the down¬ 
trodden, anyhow.” 

That was true. Scatter is always and for¬ 
ever finding poor unhappy souls and giving 
them a hand up. But with me that day she 
was as firm as a stone. 

“No, Frosty,” she said. “ I’ll not even go 
with you, for if I did, I’d be sure to do all the 
talking. This is your job as Captain, so hurry 
right along.” 

I went, only I didn’t hurry. I dragged my 
feet and wished that I were anywhere but on 
the path to the Third Shack and Happy Jack. 

However, I did arrive there at last and 
found her packing, even as Scatter had fore¬ 
told. 

“ Why do you want to leave Camp now 
when we’ve got the sides even and every¬ 
thing? ” I asked her. “ Are you homesick? ” 

“ N . . . n . . . no. I’m not home¬ 
sick, exactly,” Happy Jack said slowly. “ But 
I thought that I had better go home. No rea¬ 
son . . . really.” 

“ You are going to leave us Raggeds in an 


SCATTER 


32 

awfully bad way,” I told her earnestly. 
“ We’ve been counting on you for the war 
canoe and swimming, and there simply isn’t 
any one to put in your place. Please, Happy, 
don’t go yet—not until you have given the 
place a chance. It’s just marvelous here, and 
we need you. Honestly we do.” 

Happy’s grave face brightened with the 

ghost of a tiny smile. She was sitting on the 

floor beside her trunk, and she looked up at me 

wistfullv. 

%> 

“Do you truly mean that, Frosty? That 
the Raggeds need me? Or are you just say¬ 
ing it to make me feel better? ” 

“ Of course I mean it, Happy,” I assured 
her. “ I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t.” 

“ Are you absolutely sure that I won’t be a 
drag on the team and keep the Raggeds from 
winning the banner? ” She searched my face 
with pathetic eagerness, and I almost wept 
over her. 

“ Of course I’m sure, Happy Jack,” I lied 
cheerfully. “ You’re going to help us no end. 
Please don’t leave! ” 

“ All right, I won’t! I’ll stay, and I’ll swim 
and paddle as hard as I can.” Happy’s face 


UP AT PANTHER 


33 

was pink with pleasure, and she started to dig 
her belongings from her trunk in the way that 
Guffin digs for woodchucks in a meadow. 
Then she paused in her eager work to regard 
me with shining eyes. 

“ And do you know, Frosty, I honestly be¬ 
lieve that I could help with baseball, too. I 
used to be a pretty good pitcher before . . . 
before . . 

She stopped. She never could talk about 
that horrible accident that had crippled her for 
life. 

But I had already turned to leave the Shack, 
and I spoke hastily over my shoulder as I 
banged the screened door behind me. 

“ I’m afraid that’s out of the question, 
Happy,” I told her, and I know that I must 
have sounded brusque. Scatter would never 
have spoken in that way. “ Stick to water 
sports. You can help us there. You have to 
be able to run in baseball to be of any use.” 

I realized as soon as I had spoken that I had 
said the wrong thing, for I stopped on the step 
outside and saw Happy Jack’s face fall. She 
looked soberly at her duffle strewn about her 
on the floor. 


SCATTER 


34 

“All right, Frosty,” she said gently. “ I 
see the point, and I’ll stick to what I can do. 
Thanks awfully for coming over.” 

That was the one and only time that Happy 
Jack tried to join us at baseball, although she 
used to limp out to the field and sit by the side¬ 
lines, chewing at a bit of grass, whenever the 
Ragged team was practising. And of course 
she was always on hand for Ragged-Hatchet 
games, regardless. 

Then, on Sunday evening, Man o’ War 
came pacing into our midst; and with her 
arrival it seemed that not only was the Ragged 
side put completely out of the running for the 
banner, but the very friendship between Scat¬ 
ter and me was likewise threatened with an 
awful doom. 


CHAPTER II 


MAN O’ WAR 

Of course that wasn’t her name when she 
first came to Panther. It takes a long time to 
earn a name like that at our Camp, and when 
Ellen Hunt-Crosby arrived in the family 
limousine, it honestly looked as if she would be 
Ellen Hunt-Crosby for the rest of the summer. 

It was a very bad beginning, for her mother 
came with her and unpacked her duffle and 
made her bed for her before she abandoned her 
to an uncertain fate among us uncouth Pan¬ 
thers. It simply isn’t done at our Camp that 
way. One arrives, properly, with the horde 
by train and Ford truck. And one never by 
any possibility allows one’s family to arrange 
one’s things if by any ill chance one is unfor¬ 
tunate enough to receive a visit from them dur¬ 
ing the summer. I seem to be somewhat mixed 
up on my “ ones,” but honestly there is very 
strong feeling at our Camp about certain 

35 


36 SCATTER 

things, although we don’t talk about them 
much. We haven’t time. 

The next morning Ellen Hunt-Crosby ap¬ 
peared at our table for breakfast, and you 
can’t imagine how uncomfortable she made us, 
for she crouched in a heap on the bench be¬ 
tween Mary Martin and Polly Stevens, and 
cried and cried and cried as if her heart would 
break. She was a great long, lanky girl, all 
arms and legs and elbows, and it was a depress¬ 
ing sight to see her all hunched up with the 
tears flowing down her cheeks like rain. 

She ate a good breakfast, though, and I’ll 
never forget how she scraped the sugar out of 
the bottom of her cocoa cup, crying bitterly all 
the while. We all tried to be nice to her, of 
course, and after breakfast we rallied around 
and told her what rare fun it is to be a Panther 
and what our habits are. And we tried to im¬ 
press upon her the fact that she was a duly 
elected Ragged and all that that should mean 
in her life. But we might as well have been 
talking to a visitor from Mars. She couldn’t 
seem to understand us, so after a while we kept 
quiet and left her alone. 

We hoped that she might get used to Camp 


MAN O’ WAR 


37 

in a day or so, but instead she became more and 
more unhappy. She wept buckets of tears at 
every meal, and she kept the girls in Shack 
One awake for hours every night, snuffling and 
blowing her nose. 

Her roommates suffered, too. 

“ Can you believe it? ” Elsie Howard said to 
me the second day. “ She’s never had a broom 
in her hands in her life. I gave ours to her 
this morning, and she began to cry.” 

“And that’s not all,” groaned Koko. “ Did 
you hear that our Shack was marked off at 
inspection this morning? That was Ellen 
Hunt-Crosby’s bed. She never was taught 
how to make one at home.” 

“ Where is she now? ” I asked. 

“ Over on her bed, crying because it’s hot 
and she can’t find her hair brush. She says 
when it’s hot at home, they close all the shades 
and a maid brings cold lemonade. I’m afraid, 
Frosty, that she will never learn to be a 
Camper—not even an excursionist, probably.” 

The very worst thing that any one at Pan¬ 
ther can be called is “ excursionist,” so you see 
our new inmate had fallen mighty low in our 
social scale. 



38 SCATTER 

“ And Frosty,” Koko went on with a note of 
bitterness in her voice, “ she won’t even be nice 
to Abey. I introduced him to her the very first 
thing, and she wounded his feelings terribly by 
bursting into tears and fleeing from his pres¬ 
ence. He’s such a sensitive little fellow that 
he simply can’t bear to be treated like that. 
In fact, he feels so badly about having her for 
a roommate that he spends most of his time on 
the rafters, and it’s awfully cold up there at 
night. I’m sure he’s going to catch his death 
of cold or something. The Doctor is worried, 
too, and so is Miss Mason.” 

Koko ended her plaint gloomily. I laughed, 
and so did Scatter. 

“ I can sympathize with Abey,” I said. 
“ But I can feel for Ellen, too. I’ll never for¬ 
get the time you introduced him to me, Koko. 
I thought I was seeing things—or maybe I 
wasn’t.” 

Koko grinned impishly. 

“ You were rather amazed, Frosty,” she ad¬ 
mitted. “We had to translate him for you 
finally, I remember.” 

“ And it took a lot of translating, too,” 
Scatter broke in. “ You’ll find that Frosty 


MAN O’ WAR 39 

isn’t a bit bright about people like Abey, when 
you’ve known her as long as I have.” 

I don’t mind saying, though, that Abey does 
take considerable translating for those who are 
not acquainted with him, and I don’t wonder 
that poor Ellen Hunt-Crosby, a stranger in a 
strange land, burst into a renewed spasm of 
weeping when she met him for the first time. 

Abey is a purely imaginary character of 
Koko’s—an Australian Filliloobird, no less— 
and she has imagined him so hard for so many 
years now that he has become quite real and 
familiar to her and to all the rest of us Pan¬ 
thers. He is a creature of very tender feelings, 
which are most easily hurt, and Koko insists 
that he be treated with due respect by Manage¬ 
ment, Counsellors, and Campers on all occa¬ 
sions. Every one joins her in her game, and 
at times it is very amusing. At other moments 
it becomes rather inconvenient for those who 
happen to be involved. 

There was one awfully cold night when 
Koko firmly refused to go to sleep until Miss 
Mason allowed her to go out on the porch and 
retrieve Abey, who had placed himself dismally 
under the spigot in a fit of the sulks. Miss 



40 SCATTER 

Mason tried to assure her that he would come 
in of his own accord when he was cold and wet 
enough, but she finally had to give in and let 
Koko rescue her pet and carry him back to his 
warm dry bed. There was no sleep for Camper 
or Counsellor until she did. 

However, it takes educating to get as used 
to Abey as Miss Mason and the rest of us are, 
and I could well understand Ellen Hunt- 
Crosby’s horror of the imaginary creature. 

But the rest of her aversion for Panther was 
utterly strange to me and the other girls, and 
we weren’t the only ones to be upset about the 
child. The Management and the Counsellors 
spent hours trying to cheer her up and make 
her feel at home, although, if I had been in 
their place, I am sure that I would have sent 
her flying back to her mother where she would 
be happy. 

As for my position as her Captain, it 
honestly seemed more than I could cope with. 
Sally Robbins is a gentle, sympathetic soul, 
and she would have been much better able to 
look after the child than I. But the Fates had 
spoken. Ellen Hunt-Crosby was a full- 
fledged Ragged, tears and all, and it behooved 


MAN O’ WAR 41 

me to see that she became imbued with the true 
Panther spirit before the summer came to an 
end. 

Of course she was a great disappointment to 
the Raggeds. We had needed that extra girl 
badly, and while none of us had expected much 
from the newcomer, still we had hoped that she 
would be able to contribute at least as much 
as Plappy Jack to the side. To have her prove 
worse than useless was unfortunate. 

At this point, when we had given up all 
hope, Scatter began to take such an interest 
in the dreary child that it seemed for a while 
as if the mystery of the Opium-eater itself were 
eclipsed. But, as I have said before, she is 
always fascinated by those who are down¬ 
trodden and oppressed. 

“ Frosty, you don’t understand Ellen,” she 
said to me. 

“ Why don’t I understand her? ” I inquired. 
“ I know that she is an awfully bad Camper 
and a total loss as far as the Raggeds are con¬ 
cerned. There isn’t one thing that she can do 
for us outside of a weeping contest.” 

“ That’s just the point,” answered Scatter 
calmly. “ We don’t think that she can do any- 


42 SCATTER 

thing, but it’s up to us to prove it. If we can 
only show her that she is good at something, 
she will be a different child. Just you wait 
and see.” 

Well, we waited, and we watched Scatter, 
who was determined to make a Camper and an 
athlete from this hothouse bloom who had been 
grafted upon us, and we aided and abetted her 
as far as seemed practical to us. 

We tried her at basket-ball. It was awful. 
She bumped the ball off the ends of her fingers, 
fell down and skinned her knees, and that was 
that. 

We tried her at baseball. But the first time 
she plajred, she made connections between a 
pitched ball and her eye, and that was that. 

She didn’t care for the water. The Doctor 
had to drive her in to swim, and a creature 
with arms and legs like hers is next to im¬ 
possible for a diver. Even Scatter recognized 
that truth. 

“ Tennis! ” decreed Scatter, hope rising tri¬ 
umphant over despair. 

But the racket that Ellen had brought with 
her was brand-new, she had never been on a 
tennis court in her life, and even Scatter can’t 


MAN O’ WAR 43 

manufacture tennis prodigies overnight. So 
that, again, was that. 

She wasn’t allowed to go out in canoes be¬ 
cause she hadn’t passed the Red Cross swim¬ 
mer’s test, and at that time we hadn’t taken up 
crew racing as a sport, although Scatter was 
already evolving the idea which was to make 
it quite the rage later on in the summer. 

The only thing that Ellen really liked was 
photography. She spent hours taking pictures 
and developing them in the tank-house with 
Miss Pond, who was thrilled to have such a 
diligent pupil, but that, of course, was no help 
to the Raggeds. 

So most of us gave the girl up as an asset to 
the side, outside of carrying water and shack¬ 
ing balls, and we resigned ourselves to being as 
nice to her as possible, convinced that no scor¬ 
ing abilities lay concealed within her long, lank 
person. 

Now, it happened that, on the Sunday in 
July that brought Ellen Hunt-Crosby into our 
midst, we older girls went on a hike with Miss 
Mason. We walked around the lake, a good 
hike for a Sunday afternoon, which had the 
added advantage of bringing us close to the 


44 SCATTER 

Opium-eater’s Point. However, we saw noth¬ 
ing of that suspicious man, although we looked 
carefully for signs of him when we were in his 
neighborhood. Just before we got back to 
Camp, the road climbed a high hill and then 
rolled steeply down the other side. We all 
started down, and Miss Mason called out: 

“ Race you to the bottom! ” 

Of course we all ran, and Scatter won easily. 
When it comes to running, Scat can tear like 
an antelope. 

At the bottom of the hill we sat down by 
the road to rest, and when we had recovered 
our breath, Miss Mason had an idea. 

“ Why not have track teams at Camp? ” she 
asked. “ We’ve never tried it, but I should 
think it would be lots of fun. I loved track 
when I was in college.” 

We thought upon the idea for a while and 
decided it would be fine, although all of us 
could think of better places for a hundred-yard 
dash than the side of Rock Hill. 

“ Tennis courts,” said Scatter. “ Relay 
races around them, and jumps and so forth at 
the back by the wire.” 

“ Good! ” declared Miss Mason. “ I’ll bring 


MAN O’ WAR 45 

it up at the next Council meeting.” And she 
did, in time for us to have a track meet that 
first scoring week of the season. 

Up at Panther we have Ragged-Hatchet 
competitions only every other week. The 
alternate weeks are non-counting weeks, and 
we use them for hikes and following nature 
trails and pioneering and things like that. Of 
course all the hiking we do counts in the final 
score, as does the nature work, but for the 
most part on those in-between weeks we just 
have a festive and a jovial time. 

The Doctor wasn’t a bit enthusiastic about 
the idea of track meets at first, but she finally 
gave in and said that we might try it out if 
we would promise not to break any bones or 
jar out back teeth over the jumps, and of 
course we promised cheerfully. 

We worked out a list of events for the 
first field day with Miss Mason’s help—stand¬ 
ing and running broad jmnps, hop-step-and- 
jurnp, basket-ball and baseball throws, and two 
relay races, first and second teams. No girl 
was allowed to compete in more than one 
event, we had to grant the Doctor that much, 
and it proved something of a mathematical 



SCATTER 


46 

problem for us Raggeds to figure our teams 
so that we had enough girls to go around. 

Try as we might, we couldn’t come out even. 
There were always two vacancies left with no 
one to fill them but Happy Jack and Ellen 
Hunt-Crosby. Two of our Raggeds were 
temporary cripples. Mary Martin had a 
sprained knee and Janice Taylor a cut foot. 
We could count on them for future field days, 
but for the present they were out of it. 

Scatter was all for having Happy Jack try 
the baseball throw, and I finally gave in to her. 

“Very well,” I said at length. “ She can 
try it, but I’m afraid that she’ll not be able to 
throw the ball very far. She’s liable to pull 
herself off balance and fall.” 

“ Let’s give her a chance, anyhow,” said 
Scatter. “ And we could put Ellen on the 
second relay team. She probably can’t run, 
but at least there will be an opportunity for 
the rest of the team to make up whatever she 
loses.” 

That sounded as reasonable as anything we 
had thought of until then, so Happy Jack was 
placed with the baseball-throwing group and 
Ellen Hunt-Crosby was listed “No. 2 ” on 


MAN O’ WAR 47 

the second relay team, and Scatter took her 
in hand to teach her her paces and to impress 
upon her the importance of the event. 

Thursday came at last, the day on which we 
had planned to have our first meet, and it was 
a marvelous day—cool and clear, as only 
Maine weather can be. 

The track meet began auspiciously, and even 
our Doctor had to admit that it was a milder 
affair than she had expected at first. We 
started with the jumps; then came the basket¬ 
ball and baseball throws, in which Happy Jack 
succeeded in making herself and us deliriously 
giddy with joy by scoring a second place for 
the Raggeds in spite of her bad leg. 

The scoring was mighty even up to the relay 
races. The Hatchets were ahead of us by two 
points, and on account of Ellen Hunt-Crosby 
we conceded them the second relay race, which 
counted three points. However, we figured 
that we had the first-team race as good as won, 
and as that counted five points, it meant a tie 
score for the afternoon, which wouldn’t be bad 
for a beginning. 

The second teams were to run first—six 
girls on a team, each one to run half-way 


48 SCATTER 

around the two tennis courts and hand the 
stick to the next in line. 

Scatter walked Ellen Hunt-Crosby up to 
the starting-line, waving her arms violently 
and chattering like a red squirrel. Then she 
left the youngster and took up her position at 
the exact spot where the poor girl would finish 
the race. 

“ What in the world were you saying to the 
child? ” I inquired, as I joined my roommate. 
“ She looks frightened to death.” 

“ Never you mind, my good woman,” an¬ 
swered Scatter. “I’ll tell you afterward. In 
the meantime, keep your eye upon our Ellen. 
She’s about to run.” 

And run! How that child did run! 

She got a bad start, about four jumps be¬ 
hind her opponent, but with one agonized 
glance at Scatter she set off at a gallop and 
passed small Hatchet Carol as if she were tied. 
Then, with her long neck stretched out and 
her mouth wide open, she came pounding down 
the home-stretch to the spot where Scatter was 
dancing like a mad girl and shrieking aloud. 

“ Come on there, Man o’ War! Look out 
for the fungus! Oh, Man o’ War! Yea! ” 


MAN O’ WAR 49 

And Scatter fell upon the gasping young¬ 
ster and pummelled her on the back until she 
choked herself red in the face. Of course all 
the Raggeds were thrilled, for we won that 
race and the first-team race, too, giving us a 
lead of two points on the Hatchets for the 
afternoon’s work. 

“ Why were you shrieking about funguses 
to your Man o’ War? ” I asked Scatter curi¬ 
ously, as we strolled back to the Shack to wash 
for supper. 

Scatter grinned and twisted her forelock 
around on her finger. 

“ That, my Frosty, is what scared the child 
into running her legs off in the race. She 
hates those fungi that sprout in the woods 
after a rain—the horrid red and yellow ones. 
The first time she ever saw one, she thought it 
was alive, and she ran shrieking to Mother 
Panther for fear it would bite. I heard Else 
and Koko teasing her about it one day, so I 
promised her if she didn’t beat Carol in the 
race, I’d have a nice ripe fungus waiting for 
her at the finish.” 

Scatter’s grin broadened, and she gave her 
hair an extra hard pull. 


50 SCATTER 

“ Little did she guess, as she galloped 
along,” Scat chortled, “ that I myself wouldn’t 
touch one of the horrid things with a ten-foot 
pole.” 

“ It’s lucky for you that she won her race,” 
I laughed. “ But, thank fortune, you’ve 
found something she can do at last. Suppose 
we try her on the first team next time? She’s 
really too fast for the second.” 

“ Well, I don’t know,” replied Scatter 
thoughtfully. “ Maybe.” And we let it go 
at that. 

With the acquiring of a new and illustrious 
name, Man o’ War found that she had come 
into comparative popularity with the younger 
element in Camp, and overnight she became a 
changed girl. If it hadn’t been for the calm¬ 
ing influence of Scatter, she would have 
swelled up with pride like a baby balloon, all 
thought of fungi completely erased from her 
mind. 

But Man o’ War was simply terrified of my 
red-headed roommate, and yet she was fasci¬ 
nated as well. She tagged along everywhere 
that Scatter went, and Scat lectured her so 
extensively and profoundly on her responsi- 


MAN O’ WAR 51 

bilities as a Panther and a Ragged that the 
child became as meek as Moses again, though 
not weeping any more. 

As for Scatter, she was highly amused by 
the gawky girl, who followed her about so 
faithfully that she earned for herself the 
secondary nickname of Scatter’s Little 
Shadow. I found it amusing, too, at first, but 
after a few days it became a fearful bore to 
have the child hanging around Loon Attic 
morning, noon, and night. Marge and I didn’t 
have the privacy of the well-known goldfish, 
and gradually we drifted further and further 
from Scatter and her Shadow and played 
around with Else and Koko, who had no in¬ 
convenient appendages, unless you count 
Abey. 

But Scatter didn’t seem to care much or to 
notice how bad I felt about it all, and it took 
a grand revival of interest in the Opium-eater 
and a valiant attempt to trap him in his ne¬ 
farious operations to bring us together in our 
old-time intimacy once more. 


CHAPTER III 


FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS REWARD 

“ Frosty, Frosty, where are you? ” Scatter’s 
voice was choked and breathless, and I could 
hear her stumbling over roots as she came run¬ 
ning down the path to our Shack. 

“ Hulloo! ” I answered. “ Here am I! ” 

That was just where I was, in Loon Attic, 
getting ready to start on an overnight hike to 
Kendall’s Pasture. It was the first overnight 
hike of the season and therefore an easy one, 
for up at Panther we begin with short, simple 
climbs and work up to harder ones gradually. 

Scatter burst into the room, her gorgeous 
red hair a halo of unruly curls. I was both 
surprised and pleased to see that she was with¬ 
out her young shadow for once. 

“ Frosty! ” 

She w r as so excited that she sounded as if 
her mouth were full of hot potatoes. 

“ You’ll never guess what I’ve just heard, 

52 


FIVE THOUSAND REWARD 53 

I’ve found out why the Opium-eater sits on 
his Point and what his mysterious trade is.” 

“ Why and what? ” I inquired with bated 
breath. 

“ Receiving stolen jewels and smuggling 
them out of the country!” Scatter’s breath 
was still coming short and puffy with excite¬ 
ment. “Listen! Mrs. Milton just drove in 
from the store with the order, and she told 
Mother Panther and Miss Hunt that there are 
jewel thieves right here in this neighborhood. 
They stole a lot of jewels in the West some¬ 
where, and they are working their way to the 
coast, where they have a confederate who will 
take the loot and smuggle it out to sea for 
them. All the postmasters around here have 
been warned to be on the watch for them. 
That’s how Mrs. Milton knew about it. Her 
husband got a notice with their description 
and everything. There’s five thousand dollars 
reward for the person who catches them, she 
says.” 

Scatter paused to draw a deep breath, and 
Marge Woodward looked at her glumly. 

“ What good will jewels do them at sea? ” 
she inquired bleakly. “ I think it’s dumb.” 


SCATTER 


54 

Marge always thinks everything is dumb, 
so Scatter ignored her loftily and continued 
with gusto. 

“ Frosty, wouldn’t it be exciting to catch 
them? ‘ Brave girls capture desperate 
bandits! ’ Five thousand dollars reward would 
be mighty nice, I don’t mind saying, and 
Frosty, can’t you see how important it is, be¬ 
sides that? They’re smuggling them to the 
Opium-eater, of course, and he in his turn will 
carry them to the coast at the dead of night. 
That’s why we see his lantern roaming the lake 
after dark. It’s a signal for his confederates.” 

“ Don’t be silly! ” I rebuffed her, although 
I was honestly thrilled and pleased at having 
Scatter her old self again without Man o’ War 
trailing behind her. “We Campers have no 
chance of catching any thieves, or the Opium- 
eater, either, if he is that kind of a man. And 
if you see any of them around here, you’d 
better look the other way, for they are prob¬ 
ably armed with guns and black jacks. Flow 
did you happen to hear about them, anyhow? ” 

“ Ummm,” grinned Scatter, giving her fore¬ 
lock a twist. “ I was in the storeroom, getting 
some ginger cookies from Christine to take on 


FIVE THOUSAND REWARD 55 

the hike to-night. So they told me all about it, 
too! ” 

“ Did you remember to ask for the cookies? ” 
interrupted Marge anxiously. 

“ Of course I did,” answered Scatter. 
“ They’re in my bloomer-leg. But honestly, 
Frosty, I don’t want to go away from here on 
a hike to-night. I want to stay and sleuth 
jewel robbers. For all you know, they may be 
under our noses right now. And it’s the best 
chance we shall ever have to catch the Opium- 
eater absolutely red-handed.” 

“ Don’t be simple! ” Marge and I spoke at 
once, and I went on. 

“ They would be awfully stupid thieves to 
hesitate at a girls’ camp on their way to the 
sea and let themselves be caught by Sarah C. 
Atwell. Roll up your duffle and the cookies, 
and come on over to Captain Mason’s room. 
She told us to meet her there at three o’clock.” 

We rolled our duffle into long sausage¬ 
shaped bundles and started for Shack One. 
Scatter muttered morosely to herself on the 
way, although up to now she had been as eager 
as any of us to take this hike. But she cheered 
up a bit when I reminded her that our route 


SCATTER 


56 

lay close to the Opium-eater’s Point and that 
perhaps there might be an interesting clue or 
two to be seen. 

The hike started on the water. We were 
to paddle across the lake and hike up the hill 
to the old barn, where Miss MacLean, the 
Junior Counsellor from our Shack, would meet 
us with our duffle, which she was taking as far 
as that in the camp truck. Man o’ War was 
not on the expedition, thank fortune, for she 
had not yet qualified for canoeing, so Scatter 
was able to give her undivided attention to a 
thorough survey of the Opium-eater’s Point 
as we paddled slowly past it. There was noth¬ 
ing of the least interest in sight, however, ex¬ 
cept a dish tow r el flapping briskly on a line 
stretched between two trees. 

Scatter drew a deep breath of disappoint¬ 
ment as we landed in a little sandy inlet tucked 
behind Nirvana, pulled the canoes up on the 
beach, and turned them upside down. Then, 
with our tin cups swinging at our belts, we set 
off after Miss Mason along the swampy trail 
that led to the road. Scatter kept a wary eye 
out for possible clues to any jewel thieves who 
might have passed along the trail recently for 


FIVE THOUSAND REWARD 57 

a rendezvous with her Pet Problem, but, once 
on the road, she joined us as we marched along 
with a grand swing, singing a song that Miss 
Mason had learned at a Girl Scout Officers’ 
training camp: 

“ It’s the far Northland that’s a-calling me away, 
As take I with my pack sack to the road; 

It’s the call on me of the forest in the North, 

As step I with the sunlight for my load. 

By Mount Crawford and Clearwater to Panther I 
will go, 

Where you see the loon and hear his plaintive wail; 
If you’re thinking in your inner heart there’s swag¬ 
ger in mv step, 

You’ve never been along the border trail. . . .” 

We sang it over and over, and to this day it 
reminds me of that remarkable hike. It 
seemed to flavor the whole thing, somehow. 

We didn’t have very far to go on the road 
before we came to a little overgrown cart track 
that began to climb steeply as soon as we had 
set foot on it. 

“ See,” said Miss Mason, pointing to the 
broken twigs and crushed grass. “The truck 
has already gone on ahead. They’ll meet us 
at the barn at the head of the lane.” 


58 SCATTER 

“ Have people ever lived up here? ” asked 
Scatter curiously. 

“ Oh, yes,” Miss Mason replied. “ They 
did years ago, I guess. Don’t you remember 
the old cellar hole where the house once stood? 
It must have been burned, for the stones are 
all charred. The barn is kept in fairly good 
condition, though. I think that a farmer down 
in the valley uses it in haying season.” 

The barn was a dismal-looking place, lop¬ 
sided and weather-beaten, with no doors. But 
its lofts were filled with hay; we could see that 
from the outside. Forrest and Miss MacLean 
were waiting for us, and we loaded up with 
grub and duffle to carry the rest of the way. 

“ So long! ” called Forrest, as he drove down 
the rutty road on his return trip to Camp. 
“ Watch aout for shaowers to-night.” 

We laughed. The natives up at Panther 
are always threatening us with showers, but 
that particular afternoon was clear and sunny. 
And so, with all our equipment on our backs 
like adventurers of old, we started up the 
narrow trail that led to the top of the pasture. 

The path was a rough one, seldom used, 
almost overgrown with blueberry bushes, juni- 


FIVE THOUSAND REWARD 59 

per, and sweet fern. Every now and then we 
had to climb over a stone wall, pushing our 
way through the tangle of alder and poplar 
that had grown up beside it. 

It was hot work, and once Miss Mason made 
us sit down and rest. The blueberries were 
thick, and we gorged on them while we waited 
•—that is, all of us but our fat cherub, Polly 
Stevens, and for once in her life she was too 
winded to even think about food. She was a 
new girl that year, and a nice one, too. 

After we had caught our breath, we toiled 
on and came at last to the bare rocks at the 
top of the pasture. At first we just lay and 
panted, but presently we revived and began to 
take notice. 

“ Why, there’s the lake and Camp and the 
beach and everything! ” Polly had never been 
on a hilltop hike before, and she was astounded 
at the map of that part of the State of Maine 
spread out before her. 

“ Loads of lakes,” Scatter assured her with 
the possessive air of one who has been there 
before. “Eight in all. Count them! And 
Frosty,” she added in a private voice to me, 
“ you can get a fine view of the Opium-eater’s 


6o 


SCATTER 


Point from here. Let’s ask Captain Mason 
if we can build our fire where we can watch 
and see if he goes out boating to-night.” 

We did, and then we set to work and made 
our beds, and Scatter and I will never cease 
regretting the one we made together in that 
delectable hollow under a scraggly pitch-pine 
tree. There was such soft, soft moss between 
those two crags of rock! We’ve never been 
up there again since that eventful night, for 
the people who owned the pasture closed it to 
Panther after that. They felt that we were 
too adventurous, I guess. Anyhow, I am con¬ 
vinced that there never was such a spot for a 
good sleep on an overnight hike in all the 
world. Of course it might have developed 
rocks or bumps before morning if we had 
stayed there. Such beds often do. But some¬ 
how I doubt it. It was a perfect bed, and both 
Scatter and I appreciated it thoroughly, such 
likely spots having been few and far between 
on the hikes that we have taken. 

It was good to be out in the open again after 
the long, slow winter, and the things that we 
cooked tasted just scrumptious, even though 
the smoke pursued us spitefully from one side 


FIVE THOUSAND REWARD 61 

of the fire to the other until our eyes wept salt 
tears into our food. 

After supper we sang songs around the 
camp-fire, and Scatter and I kept a sharp 
watch on the Opium-eater’s Point. 

Finally bedtime came, and we snuggled 
down into that priceless pioss with ecstatic 
grunts of joy and comfort. We didn’t go to 
sleep right away. It was so perfect to be back 
on the top of the world again, and we had 
saved some ginger cookies to eat in bed, and 
Scatter had to keep raising herself on her 
elbow for another look at the black void that 
was the Opium-eater’s place before we settled 
down for the night. 

We were really too wide awake to sleep, and 
then Abey began to riot about. He climbed 
to the top of a pitchy pine-tree, and Kako 
couldn’t get him to come down and couldn’t 
climb up after him because it was so sticky, 
and we laughed and laughed and it was such 
fun. 

The night was black, with no moon nor 
stars at all. But we didn’t pay much atten¬ 
tion to the heavens, so that it didn’t trouble 
us any. Then, just as we began to feel drowsy 


62 


SCATTER 


and snug, we were aroused by a brilliant flare 
of lightning and a rumble of thunder. The air 
suddenly turned dank and chill and began to 
move past us stealthily, hurrying away from 
the approaching storm. 

“ Girls! ” Miss Mason’s voice was sharp in 
the hush that followed the roll of thunder. 
“ Get up and pack your duffle. Keep your 
sweaters on. We shall have to hurry down to 
the old barn before the storm breaks. Be 
quick! ” 

We all scrambled out of our blankets, 
thrilled by the adventure that stared us in the 
face. Scatter and I helped each other roll our 
duffle neatly, and then we helped Polly. She 
didn’t care for thunder-storms and was about 
to burst into tears on the spot. 

We started down the trail single file, Miss 
Mason at the head of the line and Miss Mac- 
Lean at the end, our flashlights flickering 
dimly between flashes of lightning that came 
more and more often. 

As we slid down the rock on which we had 
cooked, Scatter grabbed my arm from behind. 

“Look!” she hissed dramatically between 
clenched teeth. “ A light at the Opium- 


FIVE THOUSAND REWARD 63 

eater’s! What can that mean at this hour of 
the night? ” 

Sure enough, there was a tiny light, as if 
a lantern were hung out on the porch for an 
expected guest. We watched it, fascinated, 
as we stumbled down the hillside, until the 
bushes closed in about us and hid it from our 
sight. 

“ It looks as if he were expecting belated 
guests,” remarked Scatter, and from her tone 
I knew she was grinning broadly. 

It was no joke to keep to the trail in that 
world of barren darkness and uneasy light, but 
we plodded along as best we could and Miss 
Mason started us singing again: 

44 It’s the flash of paddle-blades a-gleaming in the 
sun, 

Of canoes softly skimming by the shore . . .” 

We were over the first stone wall. Polly 
fell down and dropped her flashlight. 

“ Never mind.” There was no comfort in 
Miss MacLean’s grim tones. “ Carry on with¬ 
out it.” 

And we caught up the song again: 


64 SCATTER 

“ It’s the tang of pine and bracken coming on the 
breeze, 

That calls me to the waterways once more. 

By Mount Crawford and Clearwater to Panther 
I will go, 

Where you see the loon and hear his plaintive 
wail. . . .” 

We were over the second wall. Now there 
was only one more to climb, near the barn. 

“ If you’re thinking in your inner heart there’s 
swagger in my step, 

You’ve never been along the border trail. 

It’s the far Northland that’s a-calling me 

away. . . .” 

Blueberry bushes whipped our bare knees, 

and a blackberry vine tore at my hand. I 
could hear Polly sneezing dismally as she 
trudged along behind Scatter. She wasn’t a 
bit happy, poor girl. 

We came to the third wall. Scatter tripped 
on a loose stone and twisted that ankle of hers 
which has always been weak, but she limped 
on with a reckless laugh. 

The wind was rising now, bolder than the 
thunder, and it hurried us into the open door 


FIVE THOUSAND REWARD 65 

of the barn just as the first great drops of 
rain began to fall. 

“Woof!” said Scatter, as she ducked out 
of her duffle and dropped it beside her. “ I 
feel like Christopher Robin when he went 
‘ up-ing and up-ing until . . . just to go 

down to the bottom again.’ ” 

“ That’s right! ” laughed Miss Mason, relief 
ringing strong in her voice. “ Now let’s see 
where we are. It’s dry here, anyhow,” she 
added, as the rain pounded on the rickety roof 
in a torrential downpour. She turned her 
flashlight above her, and we could see racks 
full of sweet hay, two long ones on each side 
of the barn and a little extra one at the back, 
all by itself. 

“ That’s the one for us; come on, Frosty,” 
said Scatter, and we picked up our sausages 
and climbed to the little private hay bed in 
the back loft. 

The others settled themselves in one of the 
side lofts after the Counsellors had disposed 
of the extra dunnage behind an old broken 
wagon to keep it from being soaked by the 
deluge of rain that came beating in at the open 
door. 


66 


SCATTER 


The hay was soft and delicious-smelling, and 
Scatter and I made a nice nest in it with our 
blankets and curled up to wait for the weather 
to cease its tantrums. 

What a storm that was! It seemed to last 
forever. It was right overhead most of the 
time, with lightning and thunder following one 
another so closely that you almost got the 
sight and sound mixed up in your mind. And 
the rain came down in buckets, finding its way 
between the cracks in the old barn and making 
a series of drips that it was impossible to 
dodge. 

Scatter and I shrank into as small a space 
as possible under our ponchos, and I am bound 
to say that neither of us was deliriously happy. 
Lightning does strike, after all, and that light¬ 
ning was mighty near. 

At last, after ages and ages of time, the 
storm withdrew itself reluctantly, as is the 
habit of storms, and became a muffled threat 
in the distance, with pale flashes and sulky 
mutterings, accompanied by the slow drip of 
rain-drops. 

Soon after that we fell asleep in the soft 
hay, and I was fathoms deep and dreaming 


FIVE THOUSAND REWARD 67 

when I felt a hand over my mouth and heard 
Scatter’s excited voice in my ear: 

“Frosty, 1-1-1-listen! I hear a noise. 
K-k-k-keep quiet, for pity’s sake.” 

I listened, and as I did so, cold shivers ran 
down my spine and the hair on the back of my 
neck began to creep. I had read of those 
unpleasing symptoms in books, but it had 
never been my ill luck to feel them before. 
Right underneath our perch there were faint 
thumpings on the floor of the barn. A scrap¬ 
ing noise followed, and then silence. 

“ Rats,” I whispered. “ There must be 
loads of them in a barn like this.” 

That comforting theory was short-lived. In 
the stillness, punctuated by the plunk of be¬ 
lated rain-drops on the roof, we heard the 
rumble of men’s voices, gruff, indistinct, but 
men’s, just the same, and not for a moment 
to be mistaken for any Panthers’. 

Scatter and I clung to each other, too petri¬ 
fied to listen or move. 

Finally Scatter placed her lips close to my 
ear, and I heard her say, “ J-j-j-jewel 
thieves . . . Opium-eater . . . going to 
listen.” 


68 


SCATTER 


“ Where are you going? ” I demanded in a 
muted whisper, making a wild grab for her. 
But she was slipping slowly and carefully 
down the slope of the hay toward the front of 
the rack. What little noise she made was cov¬ 
ered by the gruff murmur of the men’s voices. 

I followed her—not that I wanted to, but 
it [was better to be close to her there on the 
edge than alone in that ghoulish nest in the 
hay. Together we lay on our tummies and 
hung our heads as far over as we dared. 

It was pitch-black down there except for 
a gleam of light way back under our loft. It 
must have come from behind some sort of stall 
or partition, for it showed in faint little lines 
as though shining through chinks in boards. 
The voices went on talking softly, and, even 
with our heads hanging down, we couldn’t 
make out very much of what they were saying. 

“ Safe here ... lie low till morning 
. . . rain’s most over now . . . sleep here 
till sun-up . . . take the stuff to him 

later . . .” 

The voices paused, and we could hear hay 
being thrown about in the stall. Shadows 
passed to and fro across the slits of light. 


FIVE THOUSAND REWARD 69 

“ Making beds for themselves,” I whispered 
to Scatter. 

Scat was shaking so hard, it was a wonder 
she didn’t fall overboard, and my teeth were 
chattering up and down like a squirrel’s. It 
was an awful feeling to be perched there in 
the dark above an unknown number of desper¬ 
ate jewel thieves—not at all the sort of indoor 
sport that I would choose if I could have any 
word in the matter. I found myself hoping 
that Scatter was having her fill of sleuthing. 
Personally I didn’t consider it either pleasant 
or amusing. 

The rustling down-stairs ceased, and the 
light went out with a puff, leaving a darkness 
so black that it seemed solid. 

“Bedded down!” I muttered and started 
back from the edge. But the voices began 
again. 

“ Sun-up . . . breakfast . . . stuff 

here until we come back . . . return about 
eight o’clock . . . take them to Rockland 

as quick as he can . . .” 

Then there was silence again. We hung 
about the edge for a while in case anything 
more should be said, but we were rewarded by 


70 SCATTER 

snores, deep rhythmical ones that shook the 
rafters. 

“ Captain Mason will think we’re making 
all that noise if she wakes up now,” giggled 
Scatter, as we wormed our way back to our 
blankets. I think we must have been hyster¬ 
ical or something, for we sat and laughed and 
wept over that silly remark for ages before 
we calmed down and realized that something 
must be done and that right quickly, before the 
situation got beyond us. 

“ It’s the thieves, Frosty! ” whispered Scat¬ 
ter. “ They have the jewels, too. They prob¬ 
ably missed their way to Nirvana in the storm, 
but they’ll go there in the morning. The 
Opium-eater is the one who will take the stuff 
to Rockland. What shall we do? ” 

“ Stay here,” I answered her. “ They prob¬ 
ably have guns in their pockets. We don’t 
want to be shot.” 

“ N - - - no . . .” said Scatter thought¬ 
fully. “ Neither does Miss Mason nor any 
of the others. We must warn them, Frosty, 
for they have to keep quiet until those men 
get out of this barn. How long is it till sun¬ 
up, anyhow? ” 


FIVE THOUSAND REWARD 71 

I stole a look at my watch by a brief flare 
of my flashlight. 

“ It’s almost dawn now,” I whispered. 
“ Three-thirty, and the sun’s up by five.” 

Scatter was still shivering, but she was also 
twisting her forelock. I could feel her doing 
it in the dark. 

“ One of us will have to climb over to the 
Counsellors and report,” she said, “ the other 
stay here in case the men talk any more. I 
don’t believe we could hear them from the 
other end of the barn.” 

“ I’ll climb,” I said. “ You’ve hurt your 
foot and you might fall off the ceiling right 
on top of the villains.” 

I didn’t want to go a bit. In fact, it was 
my idea of absolutely nothing to do. But 
Scatter saw my point and she said: 

“ All right, but, for pity’s sake, come back 
here again.” 

I climbed out onto the beam without any 
trouble, and, aided by tiny gleams of the flash¬ 
light that Scatter held to guide me on my way, 
I crept toward the other rack at the far end 
of the barn. 

One of the men behind and below me gave 


72 SCATTER 

a stifled whoop in his sleep, and my heart 
jumped into my mouth. It felt as if it might 
fall out and get lost on the bam floor, but the 
snores became rhythmic again, my heart slid 
back to where it belongs, and I perched myself 
on the edge of the long haymow to consider 
my next move. I had stupidly left my own 
flashlight back there in my blankets, and if I 
prowled into the midst of the sleeping Pan¬ 
thers and stepped on some one in the process, 
the uproar that would follow would be devas¬ 
tating. 

So I crept slowly up the hay, feeling before 
me with my hands like a blind person. I 
touched a foot in my progress. Sneakers! It 
was not Miss Mason, then, for she was wearing 
moccasins. 

I felt along the leg from the foot and on up 
to the face. It was Polly. I could feel her 
fat cheeks. I put my hand over her mouth 
and muttered in her ear, just as Scatter had 
done to me not long before. 

Polly awoke with a bounce and a smothered 
squeal, and I sat myself firmly upon her stout 
person. 

“ Keep quiet,” I warned her, “ if you don’t 


FIVE THOUSAND REWARD 73 

want to be shot! Where is Captain Mason? 
Whisper softly! ” 

“ Over th-th-th-there.” 

“ Where? 1 can’t see in the dark.” 

“ M-M-M-Marge is next to me, and Miss 
Mason is next to her. Whatever is the mat¬ 
ter, Frosty? Are you playing a game? ” 

“ Never mind, cherub. Keep still and go 
back to sleep.” 

I left her and prowled around her feet and 
Marge’s and came to Miss Mason’s moccasins 
at last. Then I played the hand-over-the- 
mouth game again and whispered the story 
into her ear. It was a relief to have her take 
charge of the situation. Cool and confident, 
never ruffled or rattled, that was our Girl 
Scout leader, and as long as she was with us, 
I knew that we were safe. 

“ We must wake the girls and tell them they 
must keep quiet until the men go out,” she 
decided quickly. “ They wake up too noisily 
when they do so naturally. It’s lucky that no 
one slept in the rack across the way. It would 
have been a hard climb to get over there.” 

One by one we aroused all the sleeping 
Panthers and explained the situation to them. 


74 SCATTER 

Then I left them to their thoughts and re¬ 
turned over the beam to where Scatter sat 
hunched like a gargoyle on her perch. 

“ Still snoring,” she reported. “ I hope 
they don’t oversleep. In fact, I wish that 
they would go now so we could go about catch¬ 
ing our. man, and getting that five thousand 
dollars reward as well.” 

“Humph!” said I. Somehow I wasn’t 
avidly interested in that reward. All I asked 
was safe passage home to Panther and my own 
cot in Shack Two. 

“Don’t be pessimistic, Frosty,” Scatter re¬ 
proved me. “ We’ll get them both. Just you 
wait and see.” 

Well, we waited for the next thousand years 
or more, and the air around us seemed to be 
as tight as a drumhead. I suppose that came 
from our waiting so violently, pushing against 
time, trying to make it move faster. 

At last, however, the darkness became 
tinged with pearl, and we could see the out¬ 
line of the open door. The rafters and hay¬ 
mows and Scatter’s tousled head were dark 
shadows in a misty lightness, and slowly the 
world gained color. Through the door we 


FIVE THOUSAND REWARD 75 

could see that grass was green and dawn was 
golden, even after that ghastly night. 

Finally a slanting beam of young sunlight 
fell across the doorway, and we heard thump¬ 
ings from down-stairs. Our hearts thumped 
in unison with them as we clutched each other 
and listened feverishly at the edge of the hay¬ 
mow. 

“ Sun-up,” we heard again. “ Ow . . . 

I’m stiff. . . . Breakfast . . 

This was nothing new, and we shrank back 
into the shadows as we heard heavy feet come 
forth from the stall and tramp out into the 
sunshine. 

After that we waited another age until we 
saw Miss Mason’s head come popping up over 
the edge of the other rack, followed by the 
heads of the rest of the Panthers. 

“ Keep quiet,” she told them shortly. Then 
she leaped to the floor of the barn and beck¬ 
oned to Scatter and me. She had the thing 
all thought out in her mind, and her orders 
were quick and to the point. 

» “ It’s five-thirty now,” she said. “ Day¬ 

light-saving makes that six-thirty at Camp. 
Early dip is at ten minutes of seven. That 


SCATTER 


76 

gives you two girls just twenty minutes to get 
down to the shore and signal across that we 
need help. Miss MacLean will go with you. 
Some of the girls who are over at camp can 
take wigwag, can’t they? ” 

“ Happy Jack and Elsie,” we nodded. 

“ Well, both of you know how to send it. 
Tell them that we think we have the thieves 
red-handed and to get Mr. Milton here before 
eight o’clock, or they will get away. We will 
pack your duffle for you and bring it with us 
when we come. I want to have a look in that 
stall before we go. Understand? Very well! 
Run! You can signal with the old Invincible 
neckerchief.” 

“ But Scatter . . .” I hesitated, thinking 
of Scatter’s twisted ankle. 

“Keep quiet!” hissed Scat. “And move 
quickly if we are going to catch them at the 
beach.” 

“ What’s the matter? ” asked Miss Mason, 
looking back at us. 

“ Scatter has hurt her ankle again. She 
ought not to run,” I blurted out. “ Give me 
Invincible, Scat. I can signal with it alone.” 

Scatter’s Invincible neckerchief is never far 


FIVE THOUSAND REWARD 77 

from her when in Camp. It is a relic of the 
one year that she went to boarding-school, and 
she looks upon it as a very potent mascot. 

“ Stay here, Sarah, and help me hunt for 
the loot!” Miss Mason’s voice cracked like 
a whip. “You others, hurry! You’ll have 
to run.” 

We did, getting ourselves soaked to the 
waist as we tore down the overgrown road, the 
shiny drops of last night’s storm showering us 
as we ran. 

It was just ten minutes of seven as we 
reached the cove where the canoes were drawn 
up on the beach, and faint across Clearwater 
we could hear Elsie blowing Swimming on 
her bugle. 

There was a stir on the Panther beach. All 
the girls who were left at Camp were lining 
up for the early dip. 

I tied Invincible to a stick and began to wig¬ 
wag. 

“Attention! Attention!” I signalled. 
There was no response. 

“ They aren’t going to see us,” I groaned 
to Miss MacLean, who stood beside me, shad¬ 
ing her eyes with her arms. 


78 SCATTER 

“There they go!” she cried suddenly. 
“ They have a flag at last.” 

“ Get Milton,” I spelled slowly, for the dis¬ 
tance was a long one. “ Thieves will be at the 
old barn at eight o’clock.” 

“ Repeat ” came back to us. It was so faint 
and far away that we had to strain our eyes 
to see the flag at all. 

“ Why don’t they get field-glasses? ” I 
panted. “ They’ll never be able to read it 
without.” 

I repeated the message, not only once but 
twice. 

“ O. K. O. K.” The welcome signal came 
at last, and I amused myself while waiting for 
the others to arrive by sending the whole story, 
trusting that the field-glasses would still be 
in use. 

When I had finished, the large flag across 
Clearwater started to wave, and I could make 
out: 

“ Forrest has left here in Camp truck. Mil- 
ton and State Police will follow. Come home 
immediately! ” 

When the others appeared, they had nothing 
further to relate. 



“Attention! Attention!’’ I signalled .-Page 77 






FIVE THOUSAND REWARD 79 

“No, there were no jewels there that we 
could see. Just farm truck and blueberry 
boxes. We didn’t stop long. We thought 
we’d better get away in case one of the men 
had an afterthought and returned for some¬ 
thing he had mislaid,” said Miss Mason, as w r e 
climbed into the canoes and started for Pan¬ 
ther, tired to death and starving for breakfast. 

Of course we looked searchingly at the 
Opium-eater’s Point as we paddled past it, 
but there was nothing moving to be seen, not 
even a wisp of smoke from the field-stone 
chimney. 

Our Doctor was waiting for us on our own 
beach, her walking-stick in her hand. And she 
gave us scant time to eat our breakfast before 
bundling us off to bed in our Shacks for a 
good long nap. 

Scatter was disgusted. 

“ I want to go back there and collect my 
reward,” she protested loudly. But the Doc¬ 
tor was adamant. Protests availed Scatter 
naught, and in spite of them she fell asleep 
like all the rest of us. 

We didn’t wake up until almost lunch time, 
and it was hysterical laughter that roused us 


8 o 


SCATTER 


then. Mother Panther was standing outside 
the sleeping-porch of our Second Shack, talk¬ 
ing to Miss Mason and Miss MacLean. 

“Blueberry-pickers!” wept Miss Mason 
and bent herself double in the agony of her 
mirth. 

“ Yes, dearie,” replied Mother Panther 
patiently. “ It was Mr. Kendall and his 
brother, the men who own that pasture, and 
they were very much surprised and hurt when 
the police pounced upon them with guns. 
They had gone to Rockland yesterday for 
blueberry boxes, and on the way back their 
car broke down. They were caught in the 
storm and soaked. They got the boxes into 
the barn finally and were planning to pick 
berries all morning. A friend was to carry 
the full crates to market in Rockland this 
afternoon.” 

I looked at Scatter and Scatter looked at 
me. 

“Five thousand dollars reward and the 
Opium-eater!” I said softly. 

“ Well, Frosty,” she answered with a slow 
grin, “ if you don’t like that, you know what 
you can do.” 


CHAPTER IV 


WITHOUT FUNGI 

Scatter was heavily crushed when she found 
that the night’s work had brought no results, 
and for a while she brooded bleakly upon the 
problem across the lake. The rest of the Pan¬ 
ther population didn’t make life any happier 
for her, either, as they took pains to empha¬ 
size the five thousand dollars reward that she 
hadn’t received and the fact that Kendall’s 
Pasture had been closed to all Panthers. Both 
Scatter and I became bored to death with the 
subject and ready to run a mile every time it 
was mentioned. 

“ Never mind, Frosty,” Scatter told me in 
the privacy of Loon Attic. “ Those men may 
have been berry-pickers, and probably they 
were. But just remember that the jewel 
thieves are still at large, the reward still stands, 
and the Opium-eater never hung his lantern 
out at the dead of night to guide the wavering 
footsteps of any benighted blueberry-pickers.” 

81 


82 SCATTER 

That was true enough, and we continued to 
keep as close an eye as possible on the for¬ 
bidden Point. 

But our hopes were doomed to be dashed 
to the ground once again. The thieves were 
captured with all the jewels on their nefarious 
persons in a town thirty miles to the north, 
and the Opium-eater continued his nightly 
wanderings on the lake. We often saw his 
lantern after dark and knew that he hadn’t 
been arrested with the other robbers. 

Then the second counting week was full 
upon us, and Scatter abandoned the quest of 
the Opium-eater with a sigh of temporary de¬ 
feat and turned her attention to the more 
pressing matter of the Ragged team. 

“ He may not have been involved in that 
affair, Frosty,” she conceded reluctantly. 
“ But I am positive that he is involved with 
us and the Raggeds somehow, and next non¬ 
counting week I am going to make it my busi¬ 
ness to find out all about it.” 

“ You have an unreasonable obsession,” I 
told her. “ Of course that man has nothing to 
do with the Raggeds. Forget him, and come 
and pay attention to this track team. What 


WITHOUT FUNGI 83 

do you think of putting Man o’ War on the 
first relay team this time? ” 

Scatter shook her head dubiously, and I was 
surprised, considering how fond she was of the 
child and all. But, though she wouldn’t com¬ 
mit herself, the rest of the Raggeds thought 
it was a splendid idea. So we gave our promis¬ 
ing new runner plenty of practice in starts and 
sprints, and we felt that she would not dis¬ 
appoint us. 

I was running first on the team, and Scat¬ 
ter, whose ankle had recovered nicely, was run¬ 
ning sixth. We put Man o’ War second, 
figuring that Mary Martin, who was third, 
was fast enough to pick up any ground that 
the youngster might lose. 

The events were arranged in the same order 
as they had been that first week, with the first 
team relay the last thing on the program. We 
lost the second team relay, and that put us 
two points behind the Hatchets for the after¬ 
noon. If we won five points for our race, the 
red would nose out the green by three points. 
Otherwise, we would lose seven, which was 
more than we could afford. The Hatchets 
were ahead of us in the total score, and we 


SCATTER 


84 

had to fight hard for every point to even 
things up for the Raggeds. 

But we weren’t worrying. With both Scat¬ 
ter and Man o’ War on our side, it looked 
like an easy victory, and we laughed and joked 
as we lined up at the start. 

Sally Robbins and I were running first for 
our teams, and I had a good lead when I 
handed the stick to Man o’ War. She took 
it from me, but as she did so, I felt that there 
was something wrong with her. For a long 
instant she hung back, fumbling at the stick; 
then, with her eyes glued on her opponent, she 
set off, her arms and legs going like windmills. 
There was no drive or force to her whatsoever, 
and Hatchet Peggy Bartlett raced along be¬ 
hind her, making up ground like a steam- 
engine. 

But, at that, Man o’ War might have ended 
about even, if she hadn’t wound up her two 
gawky legs like a corkscrew and gone flat on 
her face three yards from the finish. All she 
got from the tumble was a pair of scratched 
knees, but the Raggeds lost the race and re¬ 
ceived a black deficit of seven points for the 
afternoon. 


WITHOUT FUNGI 85 

“ That child is just plain stupid,” I groaned 
to Scatter. “ Any normal human being can 
keep her feet from winding up if she honestly 
wants to.” 

“ I don’t know. Maybe,” answered Scatter 
impassively. 

“ You said that before,” I remarked. 
“ What is the point? ” 

“ The point is this,” replied Scatter, twist¬ 
ing her forelock reflectively. “ Man o’ War 
will never run as fast as she can until she for¬ 
gets all about herself and the fact that she’s 
Ellen Hunt-Crosby. She’s young yet, but 
some day she will learn, if she is given time.” 

“ Psychologist! ” I jeered. 

“ Don’t be impudent, Frosty,” replied Scat¬ 
ter calmly. “ That’s true, honestly. Captain 
Mason explained it all to me. You see, it’s 
this way. The first time that Man o’ War 
ran, she was so scared that she never once 
thought of herself or the side. She was just 
running away from the poisonous fungi as 
hard as she could. To-day I wasn’t waiting 
for her at the finish, and she had been so filled 
with the idea of winning for the glory of the 
side that she was just plain embarrassed. She 


86 


SCATTER 


was thinking about how badly the Raggeds 
needed five points and where she was putting 
her feet, and they got away from her, that’s 
all.” 

“ How can you cure symptoms like that? ” 
I inquired. 

“ Get her so scared and interested some¬ 
time that she’ll forget that she ever was Ellen 
Hunt-Crosby. After that, relay racing will 
be easy for her, and she’ll carry on like some¬ 
thing else.” 

“ Well, Scat,” I answered, “ you can play 
ghost for her if you be so minded, but in the 
meantime she’ll run for fungi on the second 
team.” 

That was the end of our flash in the pan 
as far as the rest of the Raggeds and I were 
concerned. But Scatter began to cultivate 
her hothouse bloom intensively again, and 
again we drifted apart from one another, and 
this time the rift was wider than before, for 
Scatter became interested in promoting row¬ 
ing at Camp, and she dragged Man o’ War 
along with her on her Passionate Pilgrimage. 


CHAPTER V 


TIN TUB 

The first year that Scatter and I went camp, 
ing at Panther, there was only one rowboat 
there. A splendid boat it was in those days, 
long and narrow and easy to row. It was 
made of tin and was inevitably called Tin Tub, 
although its real name, “ Poke o’ Moonshine,” 
was painted in large letters on its bow. 

By the time that young Man o’ War arrived 
at Panther, the old boat was beginning to 
show its age and had acquired two helpers— 
squat wooden boats that were just as apt to 
go around and around in the water as for¬ 
ward. None of us liked the new boats, but 
we took canoes if we wanted to go anywhere 
on the lake, and we had always done our rac¬ 
ing in war canoes until Scatter suggested row¬ 
ing. So the wooden boats did well enough for 
life-saving duty at swimming hour and for 
poor swimmers to poke about in. 

At first we didn’t bother our heads with 

87 


SCATTER 


88 

them, but when Scatter became crew-minded, 
the two new boats acquired an importance that 
they never really deserved. Why Scatter 
should have been the one to become passion¬ 
ately fond of rowing is a mystery that has 
never been solved, unless she was hoping there¬ 
by to get herself nearer the Opium-eater and 
his Point. I wasn’t seeing much of her at the 
time, and she didn’t bother to explain herself 
to me. 

Anyhow, she just naturally couldn’t row— 
not with two oars at once—and it was prob¬ 
ably one of the darkest days in her life when 
the Ragged crews were announced for the first 
race and she found that she wasn’t even chosen 
for coxswain, which she naturally wouldn’t 
have been anyhow, since she is a lusty girl 
for her age. It seems a funny thing that a 
girl like Scatter, who can run like a deer and 
play basket-ball and tennis like a streak, is 
perfectly helpless when she has two oars in 
her hands. She could paddle a canoe, swim, 
and dive, but when it came to rowing, she was 
simply impossible. 

“ Honestly, Frosty,” she said to me in an 
aggrieved tone of voice, “ if you would only 


TIN TUB 


89 

let me use one oar at a time, I’d be a won¬ 
derful rower—like this. I take an oar, and 
you take an oar, and Else and Marge each take 
one behind us, and we’ll be a four-passenger 
crew instead of a two.” 

“No!” I declared firmly. “Those waltz¬ 
ing boats are too small for that. It’s two oars 
or nothing. You can take old Tin Tub and 
go and help judge at the finish line, if you 
want to.” 

Well, we all found crew-racing good fun, 
although we didn’t care much for the boats we 
had to race in. Scatter never did give up the 
idea that she might blossom out as a rower 
eventually, and she spent hours of practice in 
Tin Tub to no avail except that it gave her an 
excellent chance to hover about the Opium- 
eater and his Point. However, two oars at 
once were one too many for her, and we spared 
no insults to make her see our point. 

But she stuck valiantly to her job, wounded 
at the thought that she couldn’t go crewing 
when it had been all her own idea in the first 
place. She finally persuaded three other hope¬ 
less landlubbers, among them Man o’ War, of 
course, to accompany her on her excursions in 



SCATTER 


90 

the Tub, and after a while, as she seemed 
happy, we stopped teasing her on the subject. 

Every summer up at Panther, just after the 
second counting week, we have some sort of 
a pageant or field day, to which we invite our 
parents, the neighbors, and Maryld, the camp 
across Clearwater from us. We entertain 
them during the afternoon, show them around 
Camp, feed them, and wave good-bye, over¬ 
joyed at the thought that we have four more 
weeks at Panther in which to recover from the 
invasion, and all worn out from saying such 
dull things as: 

“ No, we don’t have bathtubs. We bathe in 
the lake.” 

“ Yes, we have to make our own beds, but 
we don’t cook, except when we go on hikes.” 

“No, I haven’t darned any stockings since 
I came, but you can take some with you if 
you like.” 

That year, because of our new interest in 
rowing, we decided to have a water day in¬ 
stead of a pageant. And we asked Camp 
Maryld to join us in some friendly competi¬ 
tion, just to make it more exciting for our 
guests. 


TIN TUB 91 

“ Um-m,” gloated Scatter. “ Trick relay 
races and diving and life-saving and crew. 
This time I will be on it, won’t I, Frosty? It 
doesn’t count for the Raggeds, and you don’t 
know how I long to go a-crewing. Please say 
that my chance has come.” 

“ Don’t be simple,” I rebuffed her. “ We 
want to give the Marylds a good race, and 
we’ll make a crew out of the best Hatchets 
and the best Raggeds—a real Panther Camp 
varsity crew.” 

Camp Maryld accepted our invitation, and 
so did crowds of parents and neighbors, and 
we worked hard getting ready for the fes¬ 
tivities. 

A short time before the fatal day the old 
Tin Tub began to show such signs of senile 
decay that the Management ruled it off the 
lake. 

Scatter was frightfully upset. With her 
red hair in doleful disorder, she came running 
to Mother Panther for comfort. I was in the 
office at the same time so I couldn’t help hear¬ 
ing her plaint. 

“ Mother Panther, you aren’t honestly go¬ 
ing to give up the old Tin Tub? ” 


92 ' SCATTER 

Mother Panther looked surprised at Scat¬ 
ter’s distress. 

“ Yes, dearie,” she told her. “ It has been 
leaking quite badly, and we don’t feel that 
we ought to take any chances with it. And 
now that we have the nice new boats, we don’t 
need Tin Tub as much as we used to.” 

“ But, Mother Panther . . .” Scatter 
was almost in tears. “ What are you going 
to do with Tin Tub? It’s much too good yet 
to grow nasturtiums in. Let me have it for 
mine. Please! Oh, pretty please with sugar 
on it!” 

When Scatter talks like that, she generally 
gets her way, and I could see that it was com¬ 
ing to her this time. 

“ But, dearie,” protested Mother Panther, 
“ what could you do with it? You don’t row. 
[Bitter blow for Scatter.] And anyhow, it 
isn’t safe.” 

“ Forrest says that it could be made just as 
good as new with a little work, and I hate to 
see it thrown out,” lamented Scatter forlornly. 
“ It’s . ... it’s such a nice boat. And 
Mother Panther, I’m a Life-Saver. Will you 
let me have it for mine if I promise, Girl Scout 


TIN TUB 93 

Honor,” and she raised her hand in the Girl 
Scout sign, “ that I’ll never take any one in it 
who is not a Red Cross Life-Saver, except 
Man o’ War? ” 

“ Why do you wish to take her, dearie? ” 
Mother Panther was patient but perplexed. 

“ Well,” replied Scatter, “ she’s a good 
child, and I’m teaching her to row. No young 
girl should ever grow up without that knowl¬ 
edge.” Scatter grinned at me complacently 
as she said this. “ Man o’ War can swim well 
now, and I’ll always put a life preserver on 
her when we go out. And Mother Panther, 
we’ll also promise, Girl Scout Honor, that we 
will never go more than fifty yards from 
shore. We’ll be awfully careful. Honestly 
we will.” 

Mother Panther finally gave in. People 
usually do give in to Scatter, for Scatter is 
red-headed and Scatter is stubborn, and when 
she wants anything very badly, it generally 
comes her way. 

“ Very well, dearie. I think it will probably 
be all right if you are very careful. I will tell 
Forrest to do what is necessary to make the 
boat seaworthy again.” 


94 SCATTER 

Forrest went to work on Tin Tub that 
night, as it leaned on its weary side on the 
beach, and he said that he was able to do a fine 
job on it. But his time was wasted, for before 
morning the poor old boat was no more. 

It had been a hot, sultry day with thunder- 
heads surging and muttering over the hills to 
the northeast. We felt uneasy when we went 
to bed, and, sure enough, in the blackness of 
the night the storm went off with a bang. A 
howling wind lashed the rain against the Shack 
in sheets, and we knew it must be raising such 
a sea that the boats would be tossed all over 
the beach. Miss Palmer, our Shack Counsel¬ 
lor, was also Water Sports Counsellor, and 
when the storm hit the Shack, she leaped out 
of bed. 

“ Miss MacLean! ” We heard her rousing 
our Junior Counsellor. “ Come on down to 
the beach with me before the boats blow 
away.” 

“ Oh, let them blow. We can catch them 
in the morning.” Miss MacLean’s job was 
tennis, and her bed was warm and dry. “ We’ll 
get soaked.” 

“ Never mind.” Miss Palmer was inexor- 


TIN TUB 95 

able. “ Get your flashlight and come along. 
It won’t take a minute.” 

Miss MacLean groaned heavily, but she 
went just the same. 

Scatter sat up in bed and called after them 
virtuously, “ Take good care of my Tin Tub, 
Miss Palmer. May I come along and help 
you? ” 

“Indeed no!” replied our mentor, as she 
went forth into the storm, banging the door 
behind her. 

Scatter swallowed the rebuff amiably, and 
I heard her chuckling to herself as she snug¬ 
gled down in bed. 

It was a long minute before the dripping 
Counsellors returned to the Shack, but when 
Scatter heard them, she bobbed up again. 

“Is my boat all right, Miss Palmer? ” she 
called softly. 

“We couldn’t find Tin Tub anywhere,” 
Miss Palmer answered. “ The waves are 
awfully high on the beach, and it must have 
drifted off. I don’t believe that Forrest could 
have tied it when he went home this evening. 
We’ll find it somewhere up the shore in the 
morning, I guess.” 


96 SCATTER 

Scatter groaned and hiccuped, and I felt 
sorry for her, but not too sorry to sleep, let 
Tin Tub roam as it would. 

Came the mom, but with it came no boat. 
Miss Palmer spent the morning exploring the 
coast, and a number of volunteer search 
parties set out to hunt for it in the afternoon. 
But the poor old thing had disappeared as 
completely as if it had been eaten. 

Scatter was distracted. 

“ It can’t have gone out of the lake,” she 
mourned. “ It must be somewhere around 
here unless some one has stolen it. Maybe the 
Opium-eater has hidden it away for use in his 
mysterious business.” 

Mother Panther broke the sad news to her. 

“ Dearie,” she said sympathetically, “ we 
are afraid that the poor Tin Tub has sunk. 
You must remember that it was made of tin, 
and if it drifted out into the lake and filled 
with water, it would have sunk right out of 
sight.” 

“ I never thought of that,” said Scatter 
sadly. At the same time she twisted her fore¬ 
lock around and around on her finger. That 
made me wonder, for I knew that she must 


TIN TUB 97 

be thinking 1 deep and devastating thoughts. 
But, think as hard as I might, I couldn’t figure 
what was on her mind this time. 

The day of the water sports arrived at last. 
Scatter and Man o’ War had been doing an 
amazing amount of giggling during the past 
few days, but no one had taken the time to 
pay much attention to them. Our minds were 
on higher things for the moment. 

We were lucky to have a fine day for our 
party, and right after rest hour we donned 
our Camp uniforms, ready to greet our guests. 
And when we are all in Camp uniform, we 
really make a mighty fine showing—forty- 
some Panthers in white jumpers, dark blue 
ties, dark blue bloomers, white sneakers, and 
dark blue socks, each with a sprig of bunch- 
berry stuck in her neckerchief. Bunchberry 
is the Panther emblem: red berries for the 
Ragged team and green leaves for the 
Hatchet. 

We didn’t have to wait very long before 
Maryld arrived, clean and pleasant in their 
green and white—no doubt a splendid camp, 
but not Panther, not for a minute. You know 
how it is. 




SCATTER 


98 

We showed them all around our Camp, and 
they were very polite, but we could see that 
they were saying to themselves, “ Nice place, 
but not Maryld, not for a minute.” And that 
is as it should be. 

At last the time came to shift into bathing- 
suits, dark blue for us, of course, and dark 
green with light green caps for Maryld, and 
we gathered at the beach where the spectators 
awaited us. 

The first event on the program was an 
obstacle race with two contestants. They ran 
down the beach, swam to the raft, dove off, 
climbed into a rowboat, and rowed ashore. It 
was very exciting, and Janice Taylor won 
easily for Panther. 

The next race was a bug-race. Four girls 
in a canoe without paddles use their hands to 
propel themselves. The course was out and 
around the raft and back to the beach. Bug- 
races are funny, and we all laughed until we 
cried. Scatter was steersman for the Panther 
canoe, but they got it so full of water that they 
ended up by swimming ashore with it, while 
the Maryld girls managed to land with their 
gunwales awash. 


TIN TUB 99 

After that we had canoe-tilting and diving 
and a life-saving demonstration and a relay 
race in which you had to swim on your back 
with a lighted candle in your mouth. I had 
thought that Scatter would enter that race, but 
she had vanished, and Marge swam in her place. 

The last thing on the program was the crew 
race, in which, of course, our revolving craft 
would be used. It was the only event that 
either camp was taking at all seriously; for 
some reason or other we both wanted to win 
badly. Up to now the score was even, and 
whoever won the crew race would receive the 
big water ball, the prize for the afternoon. We 
would hand it over to Maryld if we won, as 
they were our guests, but just the same we did 
want to win that race. 

The starting-point was the raft, moored a 
hundred feet offshore, and the finish was 
staked out opposite the Camp House, where 
our guests might watch it from the veranda. 
Every one went up there except the two crews 
and the two fathers whom we had invited to be 
starters. They paddled themselves out to the 
raft in a canoe, and we rowers got ready to 
follow them. 

* 

; >*, 
j j 
> O ) 

5 J 
) 


100 SCATTER 

Three girls stood beside our boat, but five 
stepped into Maryld’s boat and pulled out to 
the raft. That seemed a bit queer, but we 
thought that two of them would be left at the 
raft as spectators. We started to embark and 
follow them, but, woe betide us, there was not 
an oarlock in our boat, and a frenzied search 
failed to reveal any in the neighborhood of the 
beach. 

“ Lost overboard in the obstacle race,” I 
groaned. “ Run to the tool-house and see if 
you can find some more, Betty. They’ll have 
to wait for us, that’s all.” 

Our little coxswain set off obediently, but 
it was not long before we found that no one 
was to do any waiting but us. For, as we sat 
there in our disabled boat, we saw, to our 
amazement, the ghost of the old Tin Tub come 
surging gaily up to the raft, its four rowers 
dipping their erratic oars to the tune of a lusty 
chant. 

“ Hip, hip, hullabaloo! 

Panther Camp varsity four-oared crew! ” 

Scatter was right-hand stroke, and beside 
her sat our long Man o’ War with a big white 


IOI 


TIN TUB 

life preserver around her middle. Marion 
Tomkins and Polly Stevens, both hopeless 
rowers, were in the bow, and little Charlotte 
Hunter was cox. 

They all wore regulation blue bathing-suits 
with clumps of bunchberry stuck in their 
shoulders. Tin Tub had received a coat of 
many colors, red and green stripes separated 
by blue bands. I knew now why Scatter had 
been smelling strongly of turpentine of late. 
In the bow of the boat rode a huge blue Pan¬ 
ther, red and green ribbons fluttering about his 
neck. 

We laughed when we first saw the appari¬ 
tion go alongside the raft, with its oars raking 
the sky, then splashing like grampuses. It 
looked funny to us, but we soon changed our 
minds, for the people at the starting-point 
took the matter very seriously. 

Scatter climbed aboard the raft and shook 
hands ceremoniously with the officiating gen¬ 
tlemen and with the nearest Mary Id oarsman. 
Then she slid into her place again, and, to our 
horror and consternation, just as Betty came 
puffing down the path with our spare oar¬ 
locks, we heard the starter say, “ Ready, 


102 SCATTER 

Mary Id? Ready, Panther? One, two, three, 
go!” 

“ Stop! ” I shouted. “ That’s not the Pan¬ 
ther crew! ” 

But it was too late, for away went the two 
crews toward the finish, oars flashing, cox¬ 
swains bobbing back and forth, and the audi¬ 
ence on the veranda yelling itself hoarse. We 
could hear them from where we sat marooned. 

The Tin Tub wobbled a bit at first, as its 
crew had difficulty in adjusting their various 
strides to each other. But in a few strokes 
they settled down to a curious crab-like 
motion, not like anything that we had ever 
seen before but which, strange to say, kept 
them well abreast of the Maryld crew. 

Flash, flash! Stroke, stroke! Even we, the 
deposed crew, began to get excited. 

“ Come on, Panther!” Elsie yelled, and I 
joined her. 

“ Come on, Scatter! Yea! ” 

And, believe it or not, they managed to beat 
Maryld by the Panther’s length and were 
greeted on the shore with such an ovation as 
never a crew received before. 

“ How did you do it? ” I asked Scatter, 



Scatter shook hands ceremoniously. -Page 101 













TIN TUB 


103 

when the shouting and the tumult had died 
and our guests had departed for another year. 

She grinned ecstatically. 

“ In the first place we took Tin Tub our¬ 
selves, and we hid it ’way up the creek in the 
long weeds. Of course the storm fitted in 
beautifully there. Mother Panther knew all 
about our plan, so that was all right. Then we 
slipped off every time we got a chance, and 
painted Tin Tub and fixed her so that she 
would stand the strain of a race. Forrest 
helped us a lot. He’s an old dear. And hon¬ 
estly, Frosty, didn’t you see us explaining to 
Maryld before the sports began that we really 
had to have five girls to a crew, that we felt it 
to be too much of a physical strain for three? ” 

It was awfully funny, and I laughed until 
I wept. 

“ And Frosty,” Scatter added, twisting her 
forelock ecstatically, “ Mr. Hunt-Crosby was 
so impressed and pleased to find that his little 
Man o’ War had made the Camp crew her 
first summer at Panther that he has offered to 
give the Camp two new boats—real racing 
boats. He’s having them shipped from Port¬ 
land to-morrow.” 


CHAPTER VI 


WITHOUT FUNGI AGAIN 

Of course we were all highly entertained by 
Scatter’s crew and were hopeful, now that 
Man o’ War had been set squarely on her feet, 
not only as a passable runner but as an accom¬ 
plished oarsman as well, that Scatter would 
turn her attention elsewhere. But our hopes 
were vain. Scatter was just as interested in 
the child as ever. She even decided to take 
her along on a very special hike that we older 
girls planned a few nights after the Mary Id 
episode. 

I was frightfully annoyed. So were the 
other girls. 

We were going to climb the ridge behind 
Camp to do star-gazing. It was a two-mile 
tramp by road, but much less than that by the 
old logging trail through the woods. We were 
to start after supper with Miss Mason for our 
Counsellor, and we would carry our blankets 
and a few marshmallows to toast by the lire 

104 


WITHOUT FUNGI AGAIN 105 

for sociability’s sake. Then we would settle 
down for a seance with Cygnus and the Great 
Bear. 

“Be reasonable!” we implored the impas¬ 
sive Scatter. “ Leave your Little Shadow at 
home just this once. She’s nothing but a kid, 
and we’re all tired of her anyhow.” 

“ It will be a fine experience for the child,” 
replied Scatter with calm. “ She might get 
a good scare or something, and, besides that, 
it’s part of her education. She’s never been 
on an overnight hike before, you know—wide 
open spaces and lying under the stars and all 
that sort of thing.” 

And, Scatter being Scatter, we knew it was 
no use to argue any more. 

Right after supper we set off on the old, 
dim trail that the loggers had left in the woods, 
over the brook on a bit of sagging corduroy, 
past the flat stones at the turn that always 
look wet, and so out into the' open at the 
crossroads, where the clump of rural free de¬ 
livery boxes are gruesomely like a Chinese 
beheading party. 

From there the road goes straight up like 
the side of a house, narrow and stony, with 


io6 


SCATTER 


grass growing in two ribbons between the ruts. 
We were puffing hard by the time we had 
reached Holts’ farm, where the road ends, and 
we were glad to sit down for a minute to rest 
our backs and shoulders. Man o’ War’s mouth 
sagged drearily, and Scatter helped her lean 
back comfy against her blanket roll before 
settling down herself. 

While we rested in a row against the stone 
wall, Mr. Holt came out of the barn leading 
a horse, half harnessed. He was a great friend 
of us Panthers, and we hailed him loudly. 

“Hullo, folks!” he called, waving his free 
hand. “ Looks like good weather fer campin’ 
aout. I’m jest settin’ aout fer Rockland to see 
a feller abaout an extry hand fer hayin’ next 
week, and I wun’t be home till late. If yer 
needful fer anything, jest step inter the haouse 
an’ ask the wife. Alius aim to help you aout 
any time.” 

As it happened, we were needful for a 
drink of water, and, Holts’ well being on our 
tested list, we stepped over to the house in 
search of “ the wife.” She was also an old and 
valued friend of ours, just as apt as not to 
produce milk and doughnuts along with the 


WITHOUT FUNGI AGAIN 107 

water. She was sitting in the kitchen with her 
new baby in her arms, trying to rock him to 
sleep. 

“ Don’t get up,” said Scatter, nobly fore¬ 
going any chance of incidental refreshments. 
“We know where the pump is, and we’ll just 
help ourselves. 

“ Hullo, baby,” she went on, poking her 
finger at the child in the strange way people 
have when they come near infants. 

He was a peculiar-looking baby, awfully 
red, with his eyelids half closed and his eyes 
rolled back out of sight. He was making un¬ 
pleasant moaning noises, and I turned my 
back. I didn’t like his looks at all. But Scat¬ 
ter and Man o’ War were thrilled by the poor 
little thing. 

Miss Mason was interested, too, but in a 
worried sort of way. She said something to 
Mrs. Holt in a low voice, but the woman 
answered cheerfully enough. 

“ No, he ain’t never ben very rugged. 
Seems like there’s not much the matter with 
him. He jest daon’t thrive like the other 
young ’uns.” 

“ I see,” said Miss Mason dubiously. “ Why 


io8 


SCATTER 


don’t you bring him to Camp some day when 
your husband comes down with the eggs? Per¬ 
haps our Doctor could tell you what to do for 
him. We’ll be going now. Thank you for the 
water. Come along, girls. Good-night.” 

We started out again, single file, along the 
cow path that leads to the bare rocks at the top 
of the ridge. It was getting dusk and damply 
cool as we wound along through the low blue¬ 
berry bushes and clumpy juniper. Smells of 
sweet fern and moss came out of the hollow, 
wet places, and ’way far off like the ghost of 
a sound we heard Elsie blowing Assembly 
down at Panther. 

We came out on the rocky ridge just in time 
to see the afterglow on one side of us and a 
baby sickle moon riding high above the lake 
on the other. It would be a perfect night for 
stars, and, regardless of dew, we spread our 
blankets in the open where we might have a 
good view of the sky when we settled down for 
the night. 

We lit a roaring fire, and even Man o’ War 
laughed with the rest of us when Scatter and 
Koko recited their everlasting dialogue about 
the things that happened at “My Uncle’s 


WITHOUT FUNGI AGAIN 109 

Farm ” and Peggy Bartlett sang her old-time 
darky songs. 

There is no place in the world where you 
can get to know a person better than on an 
overnight hike, and, by the time we were curled 
up in our blankets under the Milky Way, we 
began to feel that Man o’ War was learning to 
be a better Camper than we had ever hoped 
for. So far she had had nothing to say for her¬ 
self, which was right and proper in the com¬ 
pany of her elders, but we all noticed for the 
first time that she had a remarkably nice smile 
as she sat there in the firelight, hugging her 
long legs in her arms. She was taking things 
just as they came, and, after all, that’s half the 
science of camping when you come right down 
to it. 

We were sleepy by the time we got to bed, 
and, in spite of Miss Mason’s inspiring ha¬ 
rangue on the habits of the Dipper and its 
Dragon, we were soon sound asleep among the 
rocks and juniper that formed our beds. 

It must have been hours later, for the moon 
had gone away and the stars were covered with 
ragged clouds, when we were aroused by the 
crying of a child on the path below the ridge. 


no 


SCATTER 


“ Who’s there? ” called Miss Mason, and 
we all shivered close together, our hair stand¬ 
ing on end in the cold night wind. 

“ It’s me, Charley Holt,” wailed the small 
voice. “ Ma says to come quick. The baby’s 
took bad, and Pa ain’t home yet. Oh, where 
are you folks? I can’t see you at all.” 

“ We’re right here, dear,” Miss Mason 
called gently. “ See my flashlight? We’ll go 
back with you. Don’t be frightened.” 

Then she turned her flashlight on Scatter 
and me. 

“ Come with me to the farmhouse,” she 
ordered. “ I may want some help. Sally, take 
charge here. There’s no need of all going, for 
it may be just a false alarm. If I need any 
of the rest of you, I’ll call and you can come 
running. In the meantime, go back to sleep.” 

“Aye, aye, sir!” replied Sally obediently, 
and every one settled back in her blankets, all 
but Miss Mason and Scatter and me and one 
other dim figure who stood beside us. 

“ I want to help the baby, too,” said this 
fourth person in Man o’ War’s voice, and, to 
my surprise, Miss Mason was willing. 

“ Very well, you may come along. You may 


WITHOUT FUNGI AGAIN hi 

be useful.” And off we went down the path 
by the light of our flashlights. 

When we got to the farmhouse, it was worse 
than we had expected. The baby had some 
sort of croupy spell and was choking itself 
black in the face, and poor Mrs. Holt rocked 
desperately back and forth, clutching it tightly 
in her arms. But Captain Mason, as usual, 
was equal to the occasion. 

“ Have you a telephone? ” she asked Mrs. 
Holt. 

The poor woman shook her head, and Miss 
Mason turned to Scatter and Man o’ War. 

“ You two girls, run to Camp and get the 
Doctor as fast as you can. Fly! We’ll stay 
here and do what we can until she arrives.” 

Well, we built up the fire in the stove and 
got a kettle of water to boiling and did what 
else we could, which wasn’t much. It seemed 
like hours and hours before the Ford truck 
came grinding into the steep yard and our 
Doctor took the job out of our hands. 

“ Just in time, thanks to the Crosby child,” 
she announced at last. “ The baby is asleep 
now, and he ought to be all right by morning. 
I want to see him again, though.” 


112 


SCATTER 


“ What do you mean by 4 the Crosby 
child ’? ” asked Miss Mason curiously. 

“ She came thundering in with the message, 
all by herself, her clothes half torn off her and 
mud up to her ears. Sarah Atwell had turned 
her ankle again, going down the hill, and she 
sent Ellen on alone. We picked Sarah up, 
hobbling along by the crossroads. She’s asleep 
in the car by now, I guess.” 

“ Man o’ War went alone over the wood 
trail? ” I gasped. 

“ Well, hardly over the trail, I think,” 
chuckled the Doctor. “ She just took the 
down-hill route and ploughed through the 
slash and swamp, judging by her looks when 
she arrived.” 

“ The poor child,” I muttered. “ She must 
have been frightened to death, all alone in 
those strange woods at night.” 

“ Poor child, nothing,” Scatter scoffed later 
on when we were talking it over. “She was 
scared for the baby, and she ran as she never 
ran before—or ever will again, most likely,” 
she added ruefully. “ But mark my words, 
Frosty, this is the scare that the child needed. 
Try her on the first relay team next week, and 


WITHOUT FUNGI AGAIN 113 

I’ll wager a ducat to a line fresh doughnut 
that she’ll run as if she’d forgotten all about 
Ellen Hunt-Crosby and her feet.” 

And so we did, and so she did. And, thanks 
to Man o’ War, the Raggeds won the race. 


CHAPTER VII 


THE PRIZE CALF 

When our Total Loss finally turned herself, 
with Scatter’s help, into a Real Asset, and a 
heroine, to boot, Scat obviously lost interest in 
her. The child was not downtrodden nor for¬ 
lorn now and so appealed no longer to my im¬ 
pressionable roommate. As for Man o’ War, 
she was too busy receiving the plaudits of the 
multitudes to have the time to shadow her 
former crush any more. And Scatter and I 
resumed our old-time friendship after a dreary 
lapse of weeks. 

Of course we Raggeds were all excited, for 
at the end of the third counting week we found 
ourselves almost even with the Hatchets, with 
seven whole days to be whiled away before we 
could start on that fourth and last week that 
led to the banner. 

“ I don’t see how we can ever wait for a week 
from Monday to come,” I said to Scatter, as 

114 


THE PRIZE CALF 115 

we drifted about on the lake on Sunday after¬ 
noon. 

“ Never mind,” she comforted me. “ There 
will be plenty for us to do. We’re going to 
be busy Panthers, you and I. Plave you for¬ 
gotten our Opium-eater and his unsolved 
mystery? If he is to be of any benefit to us 
Raggeds before the end of the season, we must 
get busy and track him to his lair. This week 
is our last chance, my girl.” 

“ We’ll not get much time for sleuthing this 
week, I’m afraid,” I told her. We Captains 
sit with the Council once a week to plan com¬ 
ing events, so I knew that we had a full pro¬ 
gram ahead of us. 

“ Hike to the sea to-morrow.” I ticked the 
busy days off on my fingers. “ That will take 
two days. Games with the Counsellors on 
Wednesday. That will take all day and most 
of the evening. Nature clue party on Thurs¬ 
day. We might get out on the lake for an 
hour or so if we get home in time from that. 
Archery tournament on Friday. That always 
lasts late. And the hike up Crawford on 
Saturday. Sunday is the best time, I guess. 
We can take the whole afternoon again.” 


n6 


SCATTER 


Scatter shook her head sadly. 

“ No,” she -said drearily. “ Had you for¬ 
gotten that my family are to be with us on 
Sunday? My Dad and my sister Caroline? 
They’re an awfully nice family, Frosty, and I 
think most highly of them, but I honestly don’t 
think that they would care very much about 
helping us to sleuth mysteries on Sunday after¬ 
noon.” 

“ Well, then, it’s Thursday afternoon or 
never,” I replied. “ We can hurry and get 
home early.” 

We were near the mysterious Point itself at 

•/ 

that moment, and Scatter stared at it with a 
gaze so intense as to all but absorb it. The 
only living being in sight was the Chinese 
servant, sunning himself beneath the flagpole. 
The intent gaze must have been too much for 
him, for, as we drifted nearer and nearer, he 
arose to his feet and departed hastily around 
the house. 

Scatter grinned and twisted her forelock 
around her finger. 

“Do you know, Frosty, Mother Panther 
must have caught wind of the fact that we are 
intrigued with this Point, for yesterday she 


THE PRIZE CALF 


117 

gave me a special warning to be sure not to 
bother the people at Nirvana.” 

Scatter humped herself in the bow of the 
canoe and brooded morosely over the prospect 
of the bit of deserted beach, the bare flagpole, 
and the tiny cabin with its wide porch and 
rickety railing. 

“ I do wish we could just step ashore and 
find out all about it,” she yearned. “ Come on, 
Frosty. I dare you to do it! ” 

But I backed water hastily and swung her 
around in the direction of the Panther bathing 
beach and diving tower. 

“ Removing temptation from your path,” I 
explained grimly. “ If you were to land there 
this afternoon after what Mother Panther said 
to you, she’d send you home on the next train. 
And if she didn’t do that, she’d keep you out 
of sports for the rest of the summer, and you 
know what that would mean to the Raggeds, 
don’t you? ” 

Scatter sighed deeply and revolved her head 
like an owl to take a last look at the fascinat¬ 
ing Point. 

“What troubles we girls do have!” she 
moaned. “ With mysteries and roommates 


n8 SCATTER 

and rules and regulations, it’s a hard life. I 
wish I were a Counsellor, I do.” 

“ If you landed on that Point,” I argued, 
as we neared home, “ we would soon find that 
your Opium-eating mystery really was in¬ 
volved with the Raggeds, for you would be off 
the tennis team and the banner absolutely lost. 
You know just as well as I do, if you don’t 
win the singles for us, there is no one else on 
the side who can.” 

Scatter faced front again, somewhat 
abashed, and began to paddle. Then she 
laughed. 

“ You win, Frosty. But promise that you 
will go paddling with me on Thursday after¬ 
noon after the nature clue party. It is ab¬ 
solutely the only time we shall have to get out 
here again before scoring week, and I am still 
positive that somehow or other the fate of the 
Raggeds hangs on the Opium-eater and his 
Point.” 

Although I don’t believe in hunches and 
superstitions, yet I knew that they often 
worked for Scatter, and I was beginning to be 
impressed by her obsession about the Opium- 
eater and the Raggeds. So I promised to go 


THE PRIZE CALF 119 

with her on Thursday afternoon, and we left 
it at that. 

The nature clue party up at Panther is a 
sort of combined nature trail and treasure 
hunt. It is one of the few things that we do 
in non-counting week that scores for our side. 
The day before the party the Counsellors lay 
two trails, one for the Raggeds and one for 
the Hatchets. They use signs that bring in 
all the accumulated nature lore of the summer, 
and they make them just as even as they can, 
and somewhere in the middle they come to¬ 
gether at a spot where we all meet and eat our 
lunch. 

We leave Camp after craft work in the 
morning and follow our trails until lunch time. 
Then we journey on to find the treasure that 
is hidden at the end of the trail. There is a 
separate piece of treasure for each girl with 
her name on it, and every girl who returns to 
Camp with her treasure intact scores one point 
for her side. 

It is lots of fun, and every one on the side 
goes in for it. Of course it isn’t violent com¬ 
petition, for speed doesn’t count, and we roam 
about the country, herded by Counsellors, of 


120 


SCATTER 


course, and talk to our friends the farmers and 
eat blueberries and swap yarns with the 
Hatchets over our lunch. 

“ I hope that our trail leads past Nirvana/’ 
said Scatter, as we milled around the steps of 
the Camp House, waiting to be set loose on 
the hunt. It was a gorgeous morning, clear 
and cool, and the scrubby pastures lifting high 
above the mysterious Point looked near and 
pleasing for a clue party. 

But we had no luck. The Hatchets were 
sent off down the path to the bathing beach, 
and we Raggeds, with Miss Mason and Miss 
MacLean escorting us, set off on the cart track 
that leads out of Camp to the main road a 
half a mile away. The trail was plainly 
marked, and we bounded off with a whoop, 
leaving poor Happy Jack behind us, wistful 
on the porch. 

We left the cart track where the woods run 
into hay fields, crossed the stubble, and started 
to climb the ridge on the other side of the road. 

“ Holts’ pasture,” guessed Scatter. And 
she was correct. 

“ Well, that’s fine for Abey and me,” quoth 
Koko. “ Mr. Holt is mighty kind about his 


THE PRIZE CALF 121 

blueberries. We would rather be here than 
anywhere else we know.” 

We made slow time, for the blueberries were 
plentiful, and you know how it is when you 
can pick them by the handful. But we finally 
did get to the top of the ridge, where we found 
the Hatchets waiting for us. They had been 
part way around the lake but not as far as the 
Opium-eater’s. 

“ No, he wasn’t even sitting on his front 
porch,” Marge answered Scatter’s questions 
scathingly. “ He was probably in the kitchen 
eating his dinner, where he belongs at this time 
of day.” 

Scatter groaned and bit into her cheese sand¬ 
wich dismally. 

“ Well, Marge,” she remarked, “ here is 
something that you can understand. I bet you 
two ginger cookies that I beat you back to 
Camp with my treasure.” 

Marge wasn’t interested. 

“ Probably you will,” she answered placidly. 
“ As long as I get my treasure back to Camp, 
it counts, you know.” 

Scatter gave our roommate an exasperated 
look and threw herself flat among the sweet 


122 SCATTER 

fern. She was presently aroused by Miss 
Mason’s decree of “ Onward.” 

“ And remember,” Miss Mason added, 
“ each girl must find her own treasure and is 
on her honor not to tell any one else where hers 
may be.” 

We nodded and set off again, we Raggeds 
keeping to the backbone of the ridge, trailing 
along the skyline toward Holts’ farm, while 
the Hatchets trickled down through the juni¬ 
per and blueberries into the woods at the 
border of the pasture. 

We followed the trail on for about a mile, 
and just this side of Holts’ farmyard we came 
to a stone wall around an apple orchard. Here 
the trail ended and our search for treasure be¬ 
gan. We found it hidden in the mossy chinks 
of the old wall and in the gnarled crotches of 
the trees—sprigs of bunchberry tagged with 
our names. 

“ Come on, Frosty, hurry! ” urged Scatter, 
when I had found mine. Hers was already 
stuck in the knot of her Invincible neckerchief. 
“ It’s early yet, and we can tear down to Camp 
and have a good hour on the lake before 
supper.” 


THE PRIZE CALF 123 

“ Very well,” I agreed, and Scatter sought 
permission to go. 

“ May we start, Miss MacLean? ” 

Our Junior Counsellor nodded, and off we 
went through the orchard and past the house, 
where we were warmly greeted by Mrs. Holt 
and the baby, who offered us refreshments 
which we nobly refused. We crossed the 
barnyard and came upon two bicycles leaning 
against the barn. 

“ All saddled and bridled and ready to ride,” 
murmured Scatter, entranced by the sight of 
so much rapid transit, and she paused in her 
rush for Camp to look at the wheels. 

“ Frosty,” she pondered, twisting her fore¬ 
lock into a curl, “ suppose Mr. Holt let us 
borrow those two bikes. Just think of the 
speed we could make going down that hill.” 

I nodded. 

“We certainly could travel fast,” I agreed. 

“ We would probably have two hours on the 
lake instead of one,” Scatter figured. 

I agreed again. 

At that moment Mr. Holt himself appeared 
in the doorway of the barn. 

“ Shore, gals. Borry them bikes ef ye be 


SCATTER 


124 

a mind to. Bring ’em back to-night, though. 
They belong to them two extry hands o’ mine, 
and they’ll be goin’ home afore dark.” 

“ We’ll surely have them back before dark,” 
we promised, and off we went down the hill, 
lickety-cut. 

What a ride that was! There were no 
coaster brakes on those ancient bikes, and, once 
started, we had to let them go. Rattlety bang, 
down the rutted road between its ribbons of 
grass we went. My heart felt as if it were 
hanging out of my mouth, and my legs were 
pinwheels, going around with those wild 
pedals. 

When we finally slowed down at the flat 
crossroads where the Chinese beheading party 
is, we dismounted feebly from our fiery steeds 
to adjust our wayward hearts and sort out our 
knees and elbows. But this proved to be a 
false move on our part, for who should be sit¬ 
ting among the executed ones but Miss Mason! 
She had left us at our treasure-hunting and 
strolled ahead. 

She fixed us with a stern and moral eye. 

“ Where did you girls find those bicycles? ” 

When Miss Mason wants to know anything, 


THE PRIZE CALF 125 

it is best to tell her the answer immediately 
and get it over with. 

“ Mr. Holt lent them to us,” we assured her 
cheerfully. 

“ Permanently? ” She was prying most 
unpleasantly, but we bore up nobly under the 
ordeal. 

“ Oh, no, not permanently,” we told her. 
“ We’re to take them back after supper. We 
promised.” 

Our Counsellor’s face did not relax. 

“ How can you take them back after supper? 
The Shack Two play is this evening, and 
you’re both in it.” 

“ Oh, Captain Mason,” we wailed, “ we’re 
in an awful hurry to get back to Camp. We 
have an important date. Honestly we have,” 

But Miss Mason was adamant. 

“ No! ” she decreed firmly. “ You must go 
back to Mr. Holt’s with these bicycles right 
now. For if you don’t, some one will have to 
ride them back for you after supper, and that 
seems hardly right as long as you borrowed 
them. So up you go! ” 

And, of course, we went. 

It was a steep climb, wheeling those bikes 


126 


SCATTER 


beside us, and of course we met all the rest 
of the Raggeds on their way down, and every 
one of them made a funny remark as we toiled 
past them. It was a relief to reach the barn¬ 
yard at last, and we sank down upon the 
ground to rest and cool off. 

“ Some day I’m going to be a Counsellor at 
Camp,” quoth Scatter bitterly. “And when 
I am, I’m going to grind the poor Campers 
under my feet just to see how it feels. And,” 
she added as an afterthought, “I’m going to 
grind some of the other Counsellors, too, par¬ 
ticularly Miss MacLean. Did you see her 
laughing when she passed us on the road? ” 

“ Well, that’s all very well for another year,” 
I answered, “ but how about this afternoon? 
Our trip on the lake is spoiled, and I was 
honestly beginning to take some stock in your 
dreams of the Opium-eater.” 

Scatter shrugged her shoulders. 

“ Perhaps we can get ourselves put out of 
the archery tournament in the first round to¬ 
morrow,” she said hopefully. “ Come on home 
to supper now. Let’s go! ” 

We started to do so but were prevented by 
Mr. Holt, who dashed across the road and 


THE PRIZE CALF 127 

kept shouting to us violently, “ Head ’er off, 
there! ” 

! 

“ Er ” was a brindle calf that had broken 
loose and was tearing for the woods with great, 
ungainly leaps, its tail held high in a funny 
loop, its hoofs flying in every direction. 

We did what we could to “ head ’er off/’ but 
it was a long, hot half-hour later when we 
finally led the calf in triumph to the barn. 

Mr. Holt was very grateful for our kind 
assistance. It seemed that the calf was a very 
special one which he was planning to show at 
the county fair. We accepted his thanks as 
gracefully as possible and started for Camp 
once more. 

“ My word, Frosty,” said Scatter, as we 
trudged down the lane, “ it’s ’most supper 
time, and I’m a wreck.” 

“ If it’s any comfort to you, that calf’s a 
wreck, too,” I told her. Then I gasped with 
horror. “ Oh, Scat, your treasure! Where is 
it?” 

Her hand flew to her Invincible, and my 
hand sought my tie, too, and we eyed each 
other, aghast. Both gone! 

“ The calf probably ate them, labels and all,” 


128 SCATTER 

Scatter mourned. “ Frosty, what a dreadful 
afternoon! We lost the bikes, lost two points 
for the Raggeds, lost our trip to the Opium- 
eater’s, and we’ll probably lose our supper, 
too, if we don’t hurry along mighty fast.” 

We did, drearily and wearily. I felt bad 
about those two points. With the Hatchets 
slightly ahead and with Happy Jack unable to 
go on hikes and clue parties, every point was 
extremely important, and it was a shame to 
cast them down a calf’s throat like that. 

Scatter kicked moodily at the stones in the 
road. I knew she was thinking of the Opium- 
eater, and I sympathized with her. It’s hard 
to be thwarted in your heart’s desire. 

As we came to the place of execution again, 
we heard First Call blown at Camp ’way down 
the hill, and we began to run. Being late for 
meals up at Panther is something to be 
avoided. 

“ There’s time yet,” gasped Scatter, as we 
turned into the logging trail and tore over the 
flat, wet rocks. “ Hurry, Frosty.” 

Well, we hurried, but, believe it or not, we 
got lost. It w r as shameful of us, I’ll admit, 
ancient Panthers as we were. We should have 


THE PRIZE CALF 129 

known that trail in the dark, but we found 
ourselves absolutely at sea in a waste of slash 
and briars and swampiness, with the far-off 
notes of Mess sounding a knell in our ears and 
hearts. 

“ Aren’t we senseless! ” wailed Scatter, as we 
forced our way through the dim woods, which 
grew dimmer every minute. “ And we must 
have been over that trail a hundred times, more 
or less. The only thing to do now is to keep 
going downhill. We’ll be bound to find the 
lake eventually. Even such idiotic excursion¬ 
ists as we are couldn’t possibly miss a target 
two miles wide.” 

We didn’t miss it, for we finally came out 
on the rocky shore half-way between our beach 
and the Opium-eater’s Point. Here we paused 
to breathe a bit and take a look at our mystery. 
There was no light in his cottage, but we could 
hear the strains of a violin, heart-breaking and 
sad, like a lost soul roving our Clearwater. 
Nothing like that had ever been heard at Nir¬ 
vana before in our time. It was a new phase 
of our problem. Even Scatter was torn by the 
sounds. 

“ Wow, Frosty,” she said. “ My hair is 


130 SCATTER 

standing straight up on my head. Let’s go 
over there and see what’s going on.” 

But I seized her elbow and dragged her back 
violently. 

“ Don’t be any more foolish than you have 
to be,” I implored her. “ We’re in trouble 
enough as it is, without getting involved in any 
more to-night. There must be search parties 
out for us right this minute, and if they found 
us over there, we’d be ruined.” 

Even as I spoke, auto lamps went flashing 
the length of the Point, and the eerie music 
ceased as if cut with a knife. 

“ Forrest and the truck on our trail,” 
whooped Scatter. “Run for Camp!” And 
we fled, arriving, completely winded, in the 
midst of the Shack Two play, which was going 
on nobly without us. 

Of course Mother Panther and the rest of 
the Management were in a frenzy, and they 
carried us away to the privacy of the office for 
a star-chamber inquisition. 

“ We’re hungry. We want our supper,” 
wailed Scatter, but we didn’t get it. Instead, 
we were seated side by side on a little bench 
with the three grave faces of the Management 


THE PRIZE CALF 131 

opposite us and the Doctor looming grim be¬ 
hind them. 

“ Now, dearie,” began Mother Panther, ap¬ 
pealing to me, “ where have you been all this 
time since Miss Mason sent you back to the 
Holts’ with those bicycles? We have been very 
much distressed about you both. We were be¬ 
ginning to be afraid . . .” 

She bit off her words and looked expectant. 

“ We’re very sorry to be so late, Mother 
Panther, honestly we are,” I told her. “ You 
see, we took the bicycles back and there was a 
calf and he ran into the road and we chased 
him . . . Mr. Holt asked us to . . .” 

Then I remembered that funny loopy tail 
and those flying hoofs, and I began to laugh 
and laugh, and I couldn’t stop. I didn’t 
honestly want to laugh, but somehow I 
couldn’t help it. So Scatter took up the story. 

“ We got all involved with Mr. Holt’s calf, 
the one that is going to win a prize at the fair. 
We were trying to be helpful, truly we were,” 
she explained carefully. 

Then it struck her as funny, and she began 
to laugh, too. 

The Management didn’t realize that we 


SCATTER 


132 

were laughing. They thought we were crying, 
and of course the more they thought that, the 
more we laughed, until the tears really did run 
down our cheeks and we lost our breaths. 

“ There, there, it’s all right,” Mother Pan¬ 
ther soothed us. “ You ran into the poor little 
calf with the bicycles and injured it? Is that 
the story? ” 

We gulped and shook, and she went on, 
stroking our quavering backs to comfort and 
soothe us. 

“ Don’t feel so bad, dearies. If you hurt 
the little calf, we will make it all right with 
Mr. Holt in the morning. There, there, don’t 
cry any more.” 

Well, it was really a difficult situation, for 
the more we tried to explain, the more she tried 
to comfort us, and finally the worst happened. 
The Doctor had been hovering in the back¬ 
ground like a hawk, and at last she swooped 
and pounced; and once again that ill-fated day 
we two long-suffering mortals were made the 
victims of those in power over us. 

“ Off to the infirmary,” she ordained 
harshly, and she herded us, shamefaced, from 
the chamber of inquisition. 


THE PRIZE CALF 133 

“ Hysteria,” she explained to the Powers 
That Be. 

“ You are probably just tired out,” she re¬ 
marked testily, as she shut us into the ward 
for the night. “ But I am going to keep you 
here for twenty-four hours until you are rested 
and I am sure that nothing further is going to 
develop.” 

“ Oh, Doctor,” Scatter besought our jailer, 
“ do let us have some supper, and please tell 
us who won the clue party.” 

“ Hatchets, of course,” replied the Doctor 
firmly. “ And your supper will be over in a 
few minutes.” 

So that was that, and there we stayed, im¬ 
prisoned, counting the minutes until we would 
be free and wondering what in the world the 
Management made of Mr. Holt’s version of 
the story when he came down with the eggs in 
the morning. 


CHAPTER VIII 


NIRVANA 

We weren’t released from prison until 
supper time on Friday night, and our schedule 
for hunting the Opium-eater was completely 
ruined. 

“ I simply cannot see a way out,” remarked 
Scatter, as we left the ward and strolled back 
to Loon Attic to wash up before supper. 
“ I’m baffled. It will take all day to-morrow 
to climb Crawford, and Sunday is out of the 
question. My daddy is a priceless parent, and 
I am terribly fond of him, but I am sure that 
he would never want to go on a detective jaunt, 
no matter how great the need, especially when 
I haven’t seen him for three years.” 

Scatter paused and twisted her forelock 
around and around. 

“ There is one way, Frosty,” she said slowly. 
“ You might go without me on Sunday. Mary 
or Elsie or some one would probably go with 
you.” 


134 


NIRVANA 


135 

“ No! ” I decreed firmly. “ We will go to¬ 
gether or not at all. Perhaps it will rain to¬ 
morrow so that we can’t climb Crawford. Then 
we could go out on the lake in the afternoon 
if it clears up.” 

Scatter brightened perceptibly, and we held 
our thumbs for rain. But the Fates were 
against us. A brighter, fairer day never 
dawned over Clearwater, and we dutifully set 
off in the morning through the goldenrod and 
asters to climb Crawford and get a view of the 
sea. 

I don’t want to seem unenthusiastic about 
that climb, for it is a good one, the best of the 
season. But I had been up there several times, 
and I had never sleuthed opium-eaters before. 

We stopped for cake and milk at old Mrs. 
Fogg’s house on the way home. She is a nice 
old farmer-lady, and she delights in feeding us 
enormously with the most delicious cake in the 
world on our annual ramble past her little old 
white farmhouse with its red barn and tower¬ 
ing elms. 

Scatter and I had hoped against hope that 
we would get back to Camp early enough for 
a recormoitering expedition on the lake before 


SCATTER 


136 

supper, but, between the blueberries on Craw¬ 
ford and the cake at Mrs. Fogg’s, we were 
somewhat delayed and didn’t arrive at Camp 
until First Call was blowing for supper. 

Saturday night up at Panther is always 
Camp-fire Night, and if the weather is good, 
we have the fire on the beach and Mother 
Panther reads the log and we sing and it’s 
nice. 

That Saturday night all was as usual. 
Scatter kept an eagle eye on the Point, but we 
saw nothing of interest until after dark. Then 
Scatter clutched my arm until it hurt, for a 
wavery light had left the Point and was head¬ 
ing straight for us. We were singing at the 
moment “ The flames leap high on Camp-fire 
Night,” and suddenly we heard that soul- 
destroying violin again. It fitted its music to 
the song we were singing, and when we had 
finished, it went wailing off into a minor tune 
all its own. 

Mother Panther half rose from the sand 
where she was sitting. Then she turned to 
Miss Hunt as if to say something. But the 
words were left unspoken. She shrugged her 
shoulders and started us off on another song. 


NIRVANA 137 

The music ceased as if it had wailed its 
heart out, but the light drifted about for a long 
time. 

“ He’s a maniac,” said Scatter, as we 
stumbled up the path to our beds. “ He’s a 
wild, mournful maniac, and he’s anchored out 
on that Point for safe-keeping. No wonder 
the Management doesn’t want us to play 
around with him.” 

“ Perhaps,” I admitted. “ But what is there 
to keep a maniac anchored on that Point? All 
he has to do is row off in his boat, or else walk 
along his Point until he comes to the road.” 

Scatter sighed despondently. 

“My Frosty, there are times when words 
fail me. Isn’t it enough to have to live with 
Marge without having you become practical, 
too?” 

I grunted. In some moods Scatter is im¬ 
possible and not to be coped with. So I let 
her alone until morning. 

On Sundays we Panthers always dress in 
our best Camp uniform of dark blue and white, 
and Scatter ties her red Invincible around her 
waist under her blouse where it doesn’t show, 
for she considers it bad luck to be without it 


SCATTER 


138 

in Camp. Also on Sundays we surrender our 
dirty wash and receive our clean wash and have 
chicken and ice-cream for dinner. 

I was placidly sorting my wash after break¬ 
fast—“ Three white jumpers, two pair blue 
bloomers, five handkerchiefs,” and so forth— 
when Scatter came running down the path to 
Loon Attic, her red hair every which way and 
one end of the Invincible flapping behind her 
like a danger signal. 

“ Yoohoo! Frosty! ” she hallooed, fracturing 
the Sabbath calm into a million fragments. 
“ He’s been called to Bangor! Praises be! ” 

“ Who? ” I asked. “ The Opium-eater? ” 

Scatter seized me by the neck and waltzed 
me around and around, stirring up my wash 
as if she were a cyclone. Then she spun me 
onto the sleeping-porch and threw me upon my 
cot with a crash. 

“No! My daddy!” she chortled. “My 
Priceless Parent! He’s gone to Bangor, but 
he’s coming here next week so I’ll see him just 
the same. He sent me a night letter, and I’m 
all agog. Frosty, do you realize what it 
means? ” 

Slowly the meaning of the good news 


NIRVANA 139 

dawned upon me. The afternoon would be 
ours. The long, golden, beautiful afternoon, 
from the end of rest hour to First Call, would 
be free, clear, and unimpeded for us to sleuth 
and detect to our hearts’ content. 

“ Your parent is a priceless one! ” I gloated. 
“ Sign up for a canoe, and we’ll make an after¬ 
noon of it.” 

Scatter nodded and twisted her forelock. 

“ And honestly, Frosty, I do have a feeling 
that our moment is at hand. We’re going to 
run the Opium-eater to earth and make the 
banner safe for the Raggeds, all in one fell 
swoop.” 

I wasn’t so sure about the Raggeds, but I 
could see that it was our last chance to solve 
the Opium-eater problem, so I was almost as 
excited as Scatter herself. 

Our church service in the outdoor chapel 
dragged as never before, and Scatter wriggled 
and fidgeted as if she were beset with one 
million mosquitoes, more or less. But it was 
over at last, and so were swimming, dinner, 
and rest hour, and we set off for the beach with 
plenty of equipment for comfort in case the 
sleuthing business should prove unprofitable. 


SCATTER 


140 

Scatter had begged a goodly supply of ginger 
cookies from Christine, and of course we had 
pillows and what not. Also, Scatter removed 
her Invincible from the inside of her jumper 
to the outside, where it gave her a very pirati¬ 
cal effect. 

“ It may bring us better luck that way,” she 
declared. “ You never can tell.” 

All was well, and we felt very smug and 
satisfied with ourselves as we reported to Miss 
Mason and Miss Palmer, who were at the 
beach in charge of boating. We were all ready 
to shove off when we heard the sound of peli 
ing footfalls on the path and Man o’ War’s 
voice raised in agonized entreaty. 

“ Scatter! Oh, Scatter, wait a minute, we’re 
coming! ” 

Scatter looked annoyed but called back, 
“ Hulloo, what’s up? ” 

Man o’ War galloped into' sight and an¬ 
swered with one of those nice slow grins of 
hers that are all white teeth in a dark brown 
face. Behind her, Koko came scuttling like 
the White Rabbit in Alice . 

“ Wow! ” exclaimed Koko, drawing rein and 
pulling herself to an abrupt halt. “ Thank 


NIRVANA 


141 

goodness, you haven’t started yet. I ran so 
fast I left Abey ’way behind.” 

“ What do you want us for? ” asked 
Scatter impatiently. “ And don’t worry about 
Abey; he can catch up w r ith you in time.” 

“ We’re going with you on the lake,” an¬ 
nounced Koko, unembarrassed, “ but you’ll 
have to wait for Abey. He would feel terribly 
bad if we left him behind.” 

“ No! ” declared Scatter with a violent shake 
of her red head, as she prepared to shove off 
with the handle of her bow paddle. “We 
can’t take you with us, and we can’t consider 
waiting for Abey.” 

Man o’ War’s grin became sadly tarnished, 
and she began to braid her long fingers into 
ropes. Miss Mason strolled over to see what 
the trouble was about. 

“ Do we have to take them with us, Captain 
Mason? ” Scatter, almost in tears, appealed to 
our mentor piteously. But Koko flared up 
like a Jack-o’-lantern. 

“ I think you’re mean, Scatter Atwell. 
Every other canoe is taken for the afternoon, 
and this is Man o’ War’s first chance to go in 
one since she came to Camp. She only passed 


SCATTER 


142 

her Life-Saving test on Friday. Please, Miss 
Mason, tell Scatter to take us with her.” 

“ Ummm,” remarked Miss Mason judicially 
to Scatter. “ Wouldn't it be rather good 
Scouting for you to share your canoe? You 
have plenty of room in it for two more.” 

Scatter grinned sheepishly. 

“ I hadn’t thought of it that way,” she said, 
abashed. “Of course we’ll share. Jump in, 
you two. But you must do just what we tell 
you, and we’ll not wait for Abev.” 

Man o’ War’s grin shone forth again and 
she unraveled her fingers. 

“ Thanks a lot, Scatter,” said Koko grate¬ 
fully, and the two roommates climbed aboard 
and settled themselves on our ginger cookies 
and cushions. “ And you needn’t wait any 
longer for Abey; he just hopped aboard, and 
we’re all ready to start at once.” 

So Miss Mason shoved us off and we betook 
ourselves to our adventure. 

Well, we paddled over opposite the Point, 
and we paddled around it and back again, but 
there was nothing to be seen—just the little 
cottage, the flagpole, and the strip of sandy 
beach. 


NIRVANA 


143 

We told our passengers all about our quest, 
and Scatter enlarged upon her hunch and its 
probable effect on the fate of the Ragged 
team. 

“ That’s all very well,” said Koko, as we 
drifted aimlessly and consumed many ginger 
cookies. “ But what are you going to do 
about it? You aren’t any better off now than 
you were before. The ban is still on, and Miss 
Mason and Miss Palmer are watching us like 
hawks from the beach. We can’t land, and 
we can’t even see the man from here.” 

“ I don’t know.” Scatter shook her head 
stubbornly. “ But I’m sure that something 
will happen. It’s got to. This is our last 
chance, and we’ll never have another, prob¬ 
ably.” 

Sometimes it seems as if the very elements 
themselves play into the hands of stubborn, 
red-headed people like Scatter. Many a time 
she has gone through a tight place with ab¬ 
solutely nothing on her side but the weather, 
or something equally dependable, and, believe 
it or not, that is what happened that day. 

If it had been I or Koko or Marge who was 
anxious about sleuthing the Opium-eater, the 


144 SCATTER 

lake would have stayed just as flat and calm 
as a mill-pond, and we would have gone in to 
supper with all our suppressed desires still 
suppressed and our quest absolutely unquested. 
But Scatter is different. Things happen for 
her. Maybe it is her red hair. I don’t know. 

Our Clearwater Lake is about two miles 
square and is usually a placid bit of water, but 
it is surrounded by high hills and low moun¬ 
tains, and once in a while it has a dreadful 
tantrum. And that is the reason why the 
Management are so very strict about allowing 
no one but Life-Savers in canoes. By the time 
a girl has passed the Life-Saving test, there is 
no danger at all, for she is a strong enough 
swimmer to take care of herself in any kind 
of a sea that Clearwater can produce. 

Well, we were drifting along on that Sun¬ 
day afternoon about half-way between our 
beach and the Opium-eater’s Point, eyeing it 
forlornly and wondering what next. The wind 
had been blowing from the south all afternoon, 
but, unbeknownst to us, it made a sudden shift 
into the west and all in a moment came pour¬ 
ing off the hillside behind Camp like roaring 
vengeance. As soon as it reached the lake, it 


NIRVANA 


145 

raised waves that seemed mountain-high, with 
frothy whiskers on their topknots. It was a 
typical squall, but heavier than most. It 
caught us from behind, as it was blowing from 
Camp and our attention was heavily focussed 
in the opposite direction. 

I was paddling stern, and I had some 
trouble in holding the canoe steady before the 
wind. Scatter was in the bow, and there was 
no danger of capsizing as long as we didn’t let 
ourselves get broadside to the waves. With 
four people in the canoe, it would have been 
impossible to turn around without upsetting, 
so there was nothing for it but to run before 
the wind and stop when we came to land. 

It was superb fun. The canoe climbed and 
flopped in smothers of spray, with oftentimes 
a splash of deep green water coming inboard. 
I glanced at Man o’ War to see how she was 
taking this wild ride, but she gazed calmly 
about her as if squalls from the mountain were 
every-day affairs when canoeing. Ivoko con¬ 
tinued to eat ginger cookies, placid and un¬ 
hurried. 

“ Frosty, I do wish you’d not splash poor 
Abey so. I’m afraid the little fellow will catch 


SCATTER 


146 

his death of cold ” was her only complaint 
against the weather. 

Scatter, of course, was doing no complain¬ 
ing at all. For, if you have followed our 
course, you have perceived long ago that we 
were being driven straight to the goal of her 
heart’s desire, the strip of sandy shingle that 
lay shining in the sunlight at the foot of the 
Opium-eater’s flagpole. 

We flopped extra hard at the bottom of an 
extra deep valley in the lake, and Scatter flung 
an ecstatic shout over her shoulder. 

“ Any chance of veering around the Point 
and landing over at Maryld, Frosty? ” 

Her glorious red halo of hair glistened like 
fire in the sunshine, and the ends of her In¬ 
vincible fluttered violently in the wind as she 
knelt erect in the bow amid the showers of 
spray into which we plunged with every wave. 

“ No! ” I replied. “ Can’t you see that we 
have to go straight? ” 

Man o’ War interrupted us casually. 

“ Miss Mason is signalling to us with a 
wigwag flag,” she drawled. 

“ Turn around and take the message, Scat,” 
I said. “ I can paddle alone for a few 


NIRVANA 


147 

minutes.” Scatter spelled the message out 
slowly: 

“ Land at Nirvana and stay there until the 
squall is over. Do you need help? ” 

Scatter flourished Invincible aloft on her 
paddle and replied, “ We are O. K.” Then 
she let forth an ear-splitting whoop. 

“ Wow, Frosty, the ban is removed! We’re 
within the law! ” 

“ That’s all right for a few minutes,” Koko 
answered. “ But Miss Mason will probably 
send Miss MacLean or some one after us in 
a boat to make sure that we don’t get into any 
trouble.” 

“She knows that we can easily swim ashore 
if we upset,” argued Scatter. “ She will make 
sure that all the other boats and canoes are 
safe ashore before she bothers to send any one 
to chaperon us. We’ll have loads of time be¬ 
fore they can arrive.” 

The nearer we were driven to that haunted 
Point, the wilder Scatter became. 

“ Do you know what this is like, Frosty? ” 
she shrieked at me in ecstasy. “ It’s just like 
a fairy-tale that I heard when I lived in the 
East with Daddy.” 


148 SCATTER 

I grunted. I was too busy for fairy-tales 
at the moment, as every wave threatened to 
twist the paddle from my hands and turn the 
bow around into the fatal trough. But Koko, 
who was licking up the last of the ginger cooky 
crumbs, said that she and Abey were very fond 
of fairy-stories, and Man o’ War looked up 
with a gleam of excitement in her eye. 

“ Look ahead there,” directed Scatter with 
a flourish of her paddle toward the approach¬ 
ing beach. The canoe gave a corresponding 
flourish and all but tumbled us into the raging 
deep. 

“ Keep your paddle in the water where it 
belongs,” I protested violently. “ What is the 
matter with you? ” 

“ Be calm, Frosty, be calm.” Scatter’s voice 
was getting that smug, irritating edge to it 
that it has when things are coming her way. 

“See that sand—how it gleams all golden 
in the sun? ” she went on, her voice half blown 
away so that she talked in a series of explo¬ 
sions. 

Koko and Abey and Man o’ War saw it. 
As for me, I didn’t care about it. Scatter 
makes me cross when she acts like that, and I 


NIRVANA 


149 

began to be gloomy in spite of the adventure. 
So I stuck to my paddling, grateful that 
Scatter had at least stopped using her paddle 
as a pointer. Anyhow, the sand did gleam 
golden in the sun. You could see that without 
pointing at all. 

Scatter continued to explode her story in 
this wise: 

“ Once upon a time there was a beach of 
golden sand, only it was on an island, not a 
Point, and it was real gold, not just sand. And 
a mighty Genie lived on the island and kept a 
flock of fierce eagles and birds of prey to at¬ 
tack any one who tried to steal the golden 
sand.” 

The canoe wallowed in the trough of a wave, 
and Scatter paused to say “ Woof! ” as a spurt 
of water leaped into her face. 

“ Do stop fooling and pay attention to what 
you’re doing,” I implored her, as I leaned on 
my paddle with all my strength to steady us 
against an angry puff of wind. 

“ I am paying attention—and telling a 
story, too,” Scatter answered back. She was 
in a hopelessly perverse mood, and Koko egged 
her on. 



SCATTER 


150 

“ What happened next? ” she inquired. 
“ Abey’s all agog.’’ 

So Scatter went on. 

“ Well, he not only kept birds of prey, but 
he kept dreadful, long, slimy sea-serpents, 
which lay in wait around his island to wrap 
themselves about any canoes that dared to 
enter those waters.” 

Man o’ War shuddered visibly and peered 
over the gunwale at the boiling green water 
about us. 

Scatter chuckled. As we drove nearer to 
her long-sought goal, she got more and more 
out of hand. 

“ Of course no one ever dared to approach 
those golden shores. But it once so happened 
that in spite of the ban, and you must believe 
this, for it was told me by a perfectly good 
priest from the village temple when I was 
young. . . . Wow, head her up, there, 

Frosty! What are you doing? Trying to 
drown us all? ” 

“ Head her up yourself,” I retorted. “ If 
you would only keep quiet and paddle, we’d be 
all right. Bail yourself out, Koko. I’m sorry 
you got wet, but this is a hard job.” 


NIRVANA 151 

Koko nodded agreeably and mopped up the 
bottom of the canoe with a cushion. Scatter 
took up her story where she had left off. 

“ It so happened, my good Koko and Abey 
and Man o’ War,” she went on with a grin over 
her shoulder at me, “ that one day four good, 
kind, benevolent natives went paddling upon 
the lake in a canoe. No doubt they were hunt¬ 
ing for wabashes or warwhoops or whatever 
natives do hunt for in a canoe on a lake, when 
a terrific squall arose and bore them resist- 
lessly toward that golden strand whereon 
dwelt the mighty Genie.” 

Man o’ War’s mouth hung open a trifle, and 
she turned her head to stare at the deserted 
beach which we were fast approaching. 

“ You’re frightening Abey,” remarked 
Koko gravely. “ I honestly think that you 
had better stop, Scatter.” 

But the force of Niagara itself would not 
have stopped Scatter at that moment. 

“ Full on that awful serpent-guarded shoal 
were the terror-stricken mariners driven, and 
their canoe was flung high upon the golden 
sands by the raging waves. Aghast at their 
fate, the trembling wretches huddled together, 


SCATTER 


152 

shivering and moaning, and they could see the 
grinning sea-monsters lolloping about in the 
water at their feet, ready to wind them in their 
cold, slimy coils. And over their heads hovered 
a cloud of taloned birds of prey, awaiting the 
word of the mighty Genie of the island to be¬ 
gin scalping operations.” 

A great black crow flew over us with a 
mighty cawing noise, and Man o’ War threw 
her arms over her head. But she quickly with¬ 
drew them with an abashed grin. I could tell 
by the back of Scatter’s head that she was en¬ 
joying herself intensely. 

“ And as those poor natives cowered there 
upon the magic sands, the mighty Genie him¬ 
self came striding forth from his cabin, and 
beside him paced the sacred Red Panther. The 
Genie, with Red Panther by his side, strode 
majestically to the wretches shipwrecked on 
his island. He raised an arm above them and 
bellowed in a voice of thunder . . .” 

We were running in close to shore, and I 
interrupted the bow paddler’s story: 

“ Cease paddling! Easy does it! ” and, rid¬ 
ing aloft on the crest of a wave, we came safely 
to land on the beach of golden sands. Scatter 


NIRVANA 


153 

leaped lightly forth, as was her duty, and 
tugged at the painter of the canoe. Then she 
turned an expectant eye upon the lodge of the 
opium-eating Genie. 

Man o’ War and Koko disembarked, and I 
followed them. Behind us on the Panther 
beach I could see Miss Mason waving her arms 
at us in pleased relief at our safe landing. She 
showed no signs of launching an immediate 
chaperoning expedition, either. 

“ Help me pull this canoe up and turn it 
over before you start sleuthing operations,” I 
said to my crew, and we left it well above the 
waves. Then we all stood in a row and looked 
slightly foolish. Our objective was reached, 
but what to do next was a problem. 

Finally Scatter took matters into her own 
hands. 

“ We’re all soaking wet,” she announced 
firmly, “ and that breeze is as cold as Green¬ 
land. Even an Opium-eater can’t refuse com¬ 
fort to such homeless waifs. Captain Mason 
ordered us to land here, and I’m going to 
demand shelter in the name of humanity.” 

“—And curiosity!” I added under my 
breath, as she stalked off toward the steps of 


SCATTER 


154 

the little house, we three drenched seafarers 
trailing soggily after her. 

Just as Scatter reached the flagpole, the 
door of the cottage was flung open with what 
seemed to us, apprehensive as we were, a vio¬ 
lent gesture, and the mighty Genie himself 
strode forth. He halted on the top step, and 
we three in the rear rank shrank together. His 
lofty gesture was altogether too much like the 
story that Scatter had been babbling to be re¬ 
assuring. In fact, my very scalp began to 
creep uneasily, as though menaced by the 
talons of those fierce eagles and vultures. 

Scatter, however, stood her ground, straight 
and slim, her wet jumper clinging damply to 
her person, her red hair curling defiantly 
around her thin face. The string of one of her 
sneakers was undone, and the old Invincible 
trailed, sodden, at her side. 

The man halted in the midst of that appal¬ 
ling gesture and stood upon his porch as if 
frozen in place. He gazed at Scatter, hypno¬ 
tized, and she stood firmly balanced, feet well 
apart, and returned his gaze, eye for eye. 

Minutes passed, or hours—it seemed that 
long to us. Anyhow, we had plenty of time 


NIRVANA 


155 

to observe the man, and we found that he 
wasn’t such a terrifying sort, after all. In 
fact he was a most pleasing-looking character. 
If it hadn’t been for that first devastating 
impression of him as he had burst out of his 
door, I, for one, would have found him an 
interesting person. He had one of those long, 
lean, hard, brown faces that look their best 
when their owners are smoking pipes. He was 
wearing a stunning English ensemble of soft 
heather-grey tweed with a sweater to match. 
Maybe he was an Opium-eater and a Genie, 
and a bad one at that, but I was all for him, 
and so were Koko and Man o’ War. I could 
feel it as we pressed close together for com¬ 
pany’s sake. 

Scatter, meanwhile, decided that she and her 
problem had communed in silence a sufficient 
length of time. 

“ If you please, sir—” she remarked with her 
most engaging and bewitching smile. “ If you 
please, we’ve been shipwrecked on your beach 
and are hoping that you will ask us in to get 
warm by your fire until the squall is over.” 

The man continued to stare, but said noth¬ 
ing. Scat tried again. 


SCATTER 


156 

“ We’re from Panther Camp across the 
cove,” she explained unnecessarily. Who else 
in the world would we be, cavorting about the 
lake in blue bloomers and blue ties on a Sun¬ 
day afternoon, in a blue canoe that had “ Pan¬ 
ther Camp ” written large on each side of its 
bow? 

The man continued to stare, entranced. 

“ Perhaps he’s a deaf mute,” murmured 
Koko in my ear. If that were so, the mystery 
might be easily solved. 

Suddenly he sat down upon the top step— 

\ 

flopped would better describe it. His eyes 
were glued on Scatter. 

“ ‘ A glory-’ ” he remarked in a strange 

voice. “ ‘ A glory in the sunlight, seen afar 
and worshiped by the king.’ ” 

Even Scatter looked bewildered at this de¬ 
velopment. 

“ Maniac! ” flashed into our four minds, as 
if they were one. I looked anxiously across 
the lake. The Counsellors were helping some 
other storm-tossed mariners to land, all fears 
about us apparently at rest. If this man 
really were a maniac, they would have been on 
their way to rescue us as fast as they could 



NIRVANA 


157 

row, and I heaved a sigh of relief at the sight 
of their unconcern. 

The squall was still squalling, but the sun 
was hanging low over the top of our hill. 
With sundown the lake would be sure to grow 
calm and we could get away, provided the 
Genie hadn’t chained us up or fed us to the 
sea-serpents by then. 

“ My word! ” exclaimed Scatter in a won¬ 
dering tone of voice. “ Perhaps you are a 
Genie, after all. But you don’t look like the 
kind that would keep sea-serpents. And where 
is Red Panther? He ought to be standing be¬ 
side you.” 

The man collected his thoughts a bit at this 
remark of Scatter’s. Maybe he thought that 
she was a maniac, too. Anyhow, he seemed 
to come somewhat closer to earth. 

“ Sea-serpents? ” he asked vaguely. “ No, 
no sea-serpents or birds of prey. Not for you, 
at any rate. And Red Panther is in the house. 
Do you mind telling me your name? ” 

“ Scatter! ” replied Scat promptly, excite¬ 
ment getting the best of her manners, for of 
course it would have been more polite to have 
used our own names instead of nicknames 


158 SCATTER 

when introducing us. “ And this ”—she 
waved at us—“ is Frosty, my roommate. The 
long, lean, brown child is Man o’ War, and the 
others are Koko and Abey.” 

Fresh bewilderment swept over the face of 
the man on the porch. He looked us backward 
and he looked us forward, and it was obvious 
that he was counting on his fingers. One, two, 
three, four girls. Scatter, Frosty, Man o’ 
War, Koko, and Abey. . . . 

It wasn’t possible. His eyes sought Scat¬ 
ter’s for enlightenment, but her mind was off 
on another track and she gave him no help. 

“We do think that we would love to be 
asked in beside your fire,” she suggested most 
politely. 

The man arose to his feet abruptly, and we 
shrank away from him nervously. But the 
expression on his face was relieving. His 
mouth was set as firm as a rock, but his eyes 
were twinkling. 

“ I am a Genie,” he confessed grimly, “ a 
real Genie with a Red Panther and a bright 
fire burning in the room behind me and lots 
of hot tea and biscuits and jam and . . .” 

It was too much for Scatter. She started 


NIRVANA 


159 

eagerly for the steps. But he held a firm 
arm across in front of her and shook his head 
forbiddingly. 

“Not a step across the threshold of my 
lodge,” he decreed, “ until you explain which 
is Koko and which is Abey and why one of 
them remains invisible.” 

“Oh, that!” Scatter grinned and twisted 
her forelock around her finger. I really think 
that she had forgotten that the man hadn’t 
been introduced properly to Abey. We are all 
so used to him at Camp that we forget that 
outsiders don’t understand him. 

So Scatter explained Abey very carefully 
so as not to hurt his tender feelings, and the 
Genie was charmed to meet him and greeted 
him very politely. 

“ And now I must understand the meaning 
of these remarkable names,” he said, “ before 
I can let you in. Are they real names, may I 
ask? ” 

I thought I probably imagined it, only I 
know now that I didn’t, but it seemed to me 
that there was a tense edge of excitement in 
his voice when he asked this question. 

“ Well,” said Scatter thoughtfully, “ Frosty 


i 6 o 


SCATTER 


can’t help hers. Her family gave it to her, it 
being Frost. Koko is really Caroline Cook. 
And Man o’ War is Ellen Hunt-Crosby. She 
is one of those gnome children that live in the 
deep, cool hemlock woods. She lives on the 
plump pink fungi that grow on trees in the 

night. Why, do you know-” Scatter was 

carried away by her subject. “ Do you know, 
we often have to tie her at night to keep her 
from overeating and growing too fat to run 
for the Raggeds.” 

Man o’ War showed her teeth in an em¬ 
barrassed grin, and I could see that her fingers 
were neatly braided again. 

The Opium-eater bent beetling brows above 
Scatter’s ruddy head. 

“ My child,” he said, “ I can perceive that 
you are a poetess in the making—if not a 
newspaper woman. Now tell me the reason 
for your own remarkable name.” 

“ Sarah C. Atwell,” replied Scatter with 
courtesy, “ and now may we please come in 
beside your fire? ” 

The man dropped his arm. It seemed to 
go limp by his side, and he stood at one side 
as we four shivering souls filed past him into 



NIRVANA 161 

the room where the fire awaited us, warm and 
cheery in the field-stone fireplace. 

It was a gorgeous room, all foreign and 
Oriental-looking, and on the mantel above the 
fire there stood, strangely enough, the statue 
of a small red panther. 

Man o’ War and Koko and I sat cross- 
legged cosily before the hearth, pleased to be 
warming our frigid persons in such a thrill- 
ingly exotic atmosphere. 

But Scatter was as one electrified. The 
instant that she set eyes on that Panther, she 
stiffened and froze stock-still in her tracks. 

“ Candor! ” she gasped. “ You’ve been in 
Candor, too! ” 

The Opium-eater had come in behind us, 
and he closed the front door before he 
answered her. 

“Yes,” he said quietly. “I’ve been—lived 
in Candor, and I suspect that you have, too. 
In fact, I knew that when I first saw your 
hair. ‘ A glory in the sunlight.’ There is 
only one other head like it in the world.” 

For an awful moment I thought he was 
going to say those tabooed words, “ red hair,” 
in which case Scatter would probably have 


SCATTER 


162 

flown up the chimney. But he didn’t, and, for 
her, Scatter was strangely humbled. 

“ How—how did you know? ” she asked 
softly. She had taken the red stone Panther 
from the mantelpiece and was stroking it with 
tender fingers. 

“ You’re Doctor Atwell’s younger daugh¬ 
ter, aren’t you? ” the Opium-eater asked, smil¬ 
ing down at her gently. “ The one that was 
sent back to the States the year before I went 
out to Candor.” 

“ Yes, I’m Dad’s youngest,” Scatter ad¬ 
mitted, her fingers still yearning over the Red 
Panther, loving it as she stroked it again and 
again. 

“ How did you get this sacred Red Pan¬ 
ther? ” she asked. “ Do the temple priests 
know you have it? ” 

The man nodded. 

“ Yes,” he said. “ It was given to me by 
the head priest himself for service rendered in 
that uprising a year ago. You heard about 
it?” 

Scatter said that she had, and continued to 
keep fascinated fingers on the sleek red stone 
beast in her lap. We three Panthers huddled 


NIRVANA 163 

on the hearth, hugged our bare knees, and 
watched the drama before us. 

“ Red Panthers like this, that have been 
prayed to by every pilgrim in Candor, are 
probably the luckiest beasts in the world,” 
Scatter remarked finally after a long crooning 
silence in which she had been caressing the 
Panther, unable to keep her fingers from his 
smooth sides. And I must say that he was an 
intriguing beast, glassy smooth, alluring to 
touch. 

The Opium-eater’s face turned grim. 

“ Don’t you believe it, Sarah,” he retorted 
bitterly. “ There’s no luck in that beast. I’ve 
had him for almost a year now, and I’m prob¬ 
ably the most luckless being alive.” 

Scatter shook her head violently. 

“ You’re wrong. You must be wrong. 
Why, he just can’t help but bring luck. That’s 
what he’s made for. It’s his job. Why, over 
in Candor he can even perform miracles. The 
temple priest told me so.” 

The Opium-eater turned on his heel. 

“ Time for tea,” he remarked coolly. 

The Chinese man brought it forth with 
clucks of his tongue and funny little bows, and 


164 SCATTER 

we did our Panther best to show him that we 
appreciated it. Anyhow, I hope that our host 
wasn’t counting on having any left over for 
company the next day, or anything like that. 
For there wasn’t any. 

By the time that we had eaten every crumb 
of that delectable meal, we had discovered 
many things, and our mystery was a mystery 
no more. In fact, he stood forth revealed as 
Miss Hunt’s own nephew, recently returned 
from the East. Nirvana, it seems, is owned 
by our Camp and was usually inhabited by his 
brother, Miss Hunt’s other nephew, who was 
at present, in his turn, a traveler in foreign 
parts. The ban was put firmly on the Point 
because the brothers came to Clearwater in 
search of peace and quiet and refused to live 
there unless guaranteed safe from invasion by 
flocks of perambulating Panthers. 

“Ummmm!” murmured Scatter softly at 
this point in the tale. “ Just think what you’ve 
been missing all these years.” 

The Opium-eater laughed and continued to 
answer questions. 

Yes, he often went out on the lake with a 
lantern at night, fishing. Both he and his 


NIRVANA 165 

brother were ardent fishermen, and the fish bit 
well at night. And besides that, he often 
rowed over to Panther in the evening after 
Taps to visit his aunt. Imagine it! The 
Opium-eater in our midst and us sound asleep! 

The night of the storm when we caught the 
blueberry-pickers, he had hung out a lantern 
for his Chinese servant, who had also been be¬ 
nighted on the road home. 

Oh, yes, he played the violin quite often. 
We had just never happened to hear him 
before, or the wind was wrong, or something. 

And finally, he absolutely refused to admit 
that he had ever eaten opium or consorted with 
jewel thieves in his life. 

Of course it was all very blighting informa¬ 
tion, considering how interested we had been 
in the man, and it certainly had nothing to do 
with the Raggeds or the banner. I began to 
have a cheated feeling, and I wanted to go 
home to Panther. 

But Scatter seemed rooted for the night. 
She had paid but scant attention to the ques¬ 
tionnaire, for she was still haunted by the 
statue of the little Red Panther. She picked 
him up again and caressed him softly. 


166 SCATTER 

“ It makes me feel unhappy to think that 
you don’t like him,” she said sadly. “ I always 
loved them so in the temples when I was in 
Candor with Daddy. They’re such enchant¬ 
ing beasts, somehow. Are you perfectly sure 
that there is no chance for this one to bring 
you luck? You haven’t had him a year yet, 
you know.” 

x 

The Opium-eater smiled grimly at her. 

“Luck!” he said. “Luck! Finish this 
story and try to put some luck in it, my poetess 
with the gorgeous hair, for I have perceived by 
your conversation that you are familiar with 
the folk-lore of Candor.” 

Scatter looked at him, a bit puzzled, but he 
went on regardless. 

“ Once upon a time there was a poor but 
honest Genie, who traveled in far places, and 
he fell in love with a beautiful red-headed prin¬ 
cess on the other side of the world from here.” 

At the fatal word “ red-headed,” Scatter 
stiffened perceptibly, but she said nothing. 
Presumably the story did not apply to her. 

The Opium-eater went on. 

“ But the princess loved another—a mere 
man, not even a lower caste of Genie—and 



NIRVANA 


167 

so our poor Genie could but worship from 
afar. And finally, after passing through sun¬ 
dry dangers and adventures in that distant 
land, he found it necessary to pack up his Red 
Panther and return to his lodge by the golden 
sands of Clearwater. And there he has lived, 
forlorn and forsaken, ever since, trying to for¬ 
get the beautiful princess with the gorgeous 
hair, whom he had left to a mere man on the 
far side of the earth. And,” he added chal- 
lengingly, fixing Scatter with a piercing eye, 
“ I dare you to find any luck in that story, my 
friend.” 

Scatter broke forth with a shout. 

“ Luck! ” she cried. “ Luck! Why, you’re 
the luckiest man in the world, and Red Pan¬ 
ther has brought it to you. You are the man 
who was ordered back to New York after that 
uprising, and then you resigned from the com¬ 
pany you were working for and came up here. 
So you didn’t know that Caroline broke that 
horrid engagement right after you left Can¬ 
dor and that she has been trying to find you, 
ever since she came back to the States, to 
explain what a horrible misunderstanding it 
was, only no one knew where you had hidden 


168 SCATTER 

yourself. I haven’t seen her since April, but 
she told me all about it then. And, if you 
can believe your good luck, that princess that 
you were telling about is over in Bangor, 
Maine, at this very moment with my daddy, 
which is the reason that we are having a tea- 
party with you on your golden sands. And 
the folk-tale ends with the good old line, 
‘ They all lived happily ever after,’ with the 
Red Panther showering blessings on their 
hearth. 

“ And now, Frosty, if your arms are rested, 
I think that we had better start for Camp. 
The squall is squalled and all is calm, and it 
would be fatal to miss supper twice in one 
week.” 

This last was very tactful of Scatter, for 
the Opium-eater had passed quite beyond 
words. 

“ Bangor! ” was all he could say, and again, 
“ Bangor! ” just as if it was heaven or some¬ 
thing. But his face was hard to look at. It 
shone. 

So we left him, and Scatter was mighty 
silent as we launched our canoe. 

“ My word, Frosty! ” she exclaimed at last. 


NIRVANA 


169 

“ That was worth the trip. Wouldn’t it have 
been awful if we had never gone there at all! ” 

And for once in her life she wasn’t thinking 
about the Raggeds and her mystic hunch. 

On our way home we met Mother Panther 
and the Doctor, rowing over to the Point after 
us in one of Man o’ War’s father’s new boats. 

“ We didn’t want you to bother Mr. Hunt 
any longer than necessary, dearie,” explained 
Mother Panther. “ And now that you’ve met 
him, you must remember not to pester him 
with any more visits. He came up here to 
Clearwater for rest and to be quiet. That is 
why we have always forbidden you to land on 
the Point.” 

“We won’t do it again, Mother Panther,” 
we promised. “ But there was nothing else 
we could do this time.” 

Mother Panther nodded and smiled, and we 
went on our way toward home. Only the 
Doctor was heard to mutter that it was 
strange that every other canoe on the lake 
managed to get back to the beach without 
having to land on foreign soil, but, as long as 
Miss Mason had commanded us to and Mother 
Panther smiled upon it, that was all right. 


CHAPTER IX 


THE SEVENTH VEIL 

“ The thing that disturbs me,” I told Scat¬ 
ter that evening after our adventure with the 
Opium-eater, “ is that we proved nothing for 
the Raggeds on our trip. Of course I realize 
that the Opium-eater is probably even now on 
his way to Bangor to cast himself at the feet 
of his ladylove, and that’s very nice for him, 
and for your sister, too. But it doesn’t score 
the Raggeds a single point, when you come to 
think of it.” 

Scatter shook her head stubbornly. 

“ I’m not so sure, Frosty,” she answered. 
“ Something may come out of that adventure 
yet. Remember that Red Panther was in¬ 
volved in it, and he’s honestly the luckiest 
beast in all the world. Of course you couldn’t 
expect anything as sudden as having the 
Opium-eater offer to strike all the Hatchets 
with lightning, or anything like that, you 
know. And anyhow, my good woman, I 

170 


THE SEVENTH VEIL 171 

thought you didn’t hold with hunches and 
superstitions.” 

I laughed. 

“ Well, I don’t,” I answered. “ But some¬ 
how you seemed so sure, and the score is so 
awfully close.” 

It really was, and, with the mystery of the 
Opium-eater solved, it behooved us to turn 
our attention to our other objective of the 
summer and do what we could to win victory 
for the Raggeds. 

The Hatchets were ahead of us, as far as 
we could tell, and the results of the events of 
that last counting week that lay ahead of us 
were all nip and tuck. You see, it’s hard to 
tell just what the total score is up at Panther, 
for so many things count for points—hiking 
and swimming classes and tennis ladder and 
nature quests and things like that. They all 
have to be averaged up at the end, and of 
course we all work at them until the very last 
minute. 

But all the known points put the Hatchets 
ahead by a slight margin. Of course we could 
count on tennis as long as Scatter could roam 
out on a court and swing a racket. Basket- 


SCATTER 


172 

ball ought to be ours, for we almost always 
did win that, and baseball was a toss-up. The 
Hatchets were sure to beat us in hiking and 
crew, and they’d probably win in the war 
canoe, although we had a chance there, and in 
diving, swimming, and track we were even. 

Scatter and I went over the chances for the 
week for the thousandth time, and for the 
thousandth time we came to the conclusion 
that we could foretell nothing. And it’s a 
lucky thing for us that we couldn’t. We prob¬ 
ably would have lost our minds on the spot if 
we had been able to look forward and see what 
slim, neglected threads were to hold our 
Ragged side together during the coming week. 

Monday started inauspiciously, for we lost 
both crew races and the second relay swim¬ 
ming race in the morning. That made eleven 
more points for the Hatchets, which wasn’t 
encouraging to us, and on top of that our base¬ 
ball practice that afternoon went badly. 

Then, to crown all the mishaps of that un¬ 
pleasant Monday, Scatter went on a wild and 
glorious tear in the Shack after Taps. It was 
a crazy thing for her to do, but she didn’t 
honestly mean any harm by it. It was just 


THE SEVENTH VEIL 173 

one of those things that happen every once in 
so often, even when your intentions are of the 
very best. 

Monday was an extremely hot day, and 
Scatter and I lay out in the woods for a while 
after rest hour. Every one else had gone back 
to the Camp House with Mother Panther, but 
we were too sleepy and lazy to move, and for 
a long while we just lay, chewing pine-needles 
and grumbling about the heat. Scatter hates 
heat even worse than being called red-headed, 
but, for her, she was taking the weather very 
calmly. 

“ Frosty,” she said suddenly, “ do you real¬ 
ize that to-morrow will probably be the last 
basket-ball game that we ever play for the 
Raggeds? ” 

“ It probably will be,” I answered, “ but it 
ought to be a marvelous game. You and I 
have mapped out that new play, and the cen¬ 
ters are working nicely with us. If we win 
basket-ball to-morrow, it will help a lot toward 
the banner. I only hope that you don’t lose 
your red-headed temper and let Sally beat you 
in the tennis finals.” 

Of course every one knows that Scatter is 


SCATTER 


174 

absolutely unbeatable at tennis when she stops 
fooling long enough to put her mind on what 
she is doing, just as every one knows that she 
is as red-headed as a woodpecker, and no one 
can understand why she objects to her red 
hair so much. Heaven knows, I would gladly 
change with her any day. 

Scatter sat up with a bounce. Her red hair 
stuck out all over her head like a gorgeous 
halo, and her funny bare knobby knees pointed 
at right angles. 

“ F-Frosty,” she stammered, “ you’ve said 
the unspeakable. I’m not red-headed and you 
know it. Take it all back, or you’ll be sorry.” 

But some imp within me, born of the heat 
and the excitement of the day before, no doubt, 
urged me on, and I chanted the sure sign for 
battle, the absolutely unforgivable. It had 
been invented by our saturnine Marge in a 
moment of abandonment and relaxation when 
we were young and foolish, and it had been 
forever taboo as far as Scatter was concerned. 

“ The chief defect of Scatter At, 

She never knows where she is at; 

She wears an Invincible neckerchief red 
That swears like sin with the color of her head.” 


THE SEVENTH VEIL 175 

It’s not beautiful poetry, I’ll grant you, but 
highly useful as a stimulant. Scatter snorted 
wrathfully. 

“Frosty,” she said, “you know that this 
Invincible tie is the best mascot that the 
Raggeds have. Have we ever lost a basket¬ 
ball game that it was in? Answer me that! ” 

“ I couldn’t tell you,” I answered her. 
“ Why don’t you stand it on its own feet to¬ 
morrow and see if it can beat the whole 
Hatchet team single-handed? ” 

Scatter chewed silently on a pine-needle and 
regarded me morosely. The insult had been a 
double one, directed at both her beloved neck¬ 
erchief and her despised red hair. Suddenly 
a gleam came into her eye. 

“ Very well,” she said firmly. “ The worst 
will come to pass. I’ve decided. To-night at 
exactly five minutes past Taps the Dance of 
the Seven Veils will take place in the Shack. 
The pure and spotless reputation of Shack 
Two will be lost forever.” 

Scatter had seen a Russian ballet at home 
in the spring, and she had been threatening to 
give a version of the Seven Veils Dance off and 
on all summer. Sometimes I had wondered 


176 SCATTER 

what kept her from the performance and had 
come to the conclusion that she was just talk¬ 
ing. So her threat of imminent action left me 
unmoved. 

“ Imagine caring,” I said negligently. “ It’s 
time we went to baseball practice; come on.” 

Scatter regarded me darkly. 

“ Imagine not,” she muttered, but she came 
with me just the same. 

It was cooler that evening, and I noticed 
how close the stars seemed over the hemlock 
trees when I was brushing my teeth over the 
railing behind the Shack. Of course we aren’t 
supposed to brush our teeth out there, but 
every one does, and if you pour the water from 
your mug carefully, it washes the tooth- 
powder off the bushes and no one is the wiser. 
At least, no Counsellors can notice the marks 
at inspection in the morning. 

“ Listen to the Counsellors in swimming 
again,” remarked Jan, who was brushing her 
teeth beside me. “You would think that they 
might get enough of the lake during the day, 
wouldn’t you? ” 

“ Well, they have to do something to amuse 
themselves once in a while,” I answered. “ I 


THE SEVENTH VEIL 177 

should think it would be tiresome to be a Coun¬ 
sellor, myself. Have you seen anything of my 
roommates? ” 

“ They were here just a few minutes ago. 
Scatter was looking for her red Mackinaw 
coat/’ 

“ For pity’s sake, why does she want that in 
this hot weather? ” I gasped in astonishment. 

“ I don’t know; she didn’t tell me.” Janice 
went into the Lion’s Den and banged her door. 
All the dressing-rooms at Panther have names; 
also, every one at Panther always bangs doors. 
It is one of the traditions of the place. Often 
when I am at home in the fall, I hear some 
one bang a screened door at night, and it makes 
me homesick for the porch of Shack Two, the 
taste of tooth-powder in my mouth, and the 
sight of Cygnus flaming overhead on his slide 
down the Milky Way. It gives me a prickly 
feeling in my throat, somehow. If only Camp 
could last most of the year, instead of school! 

Well, I don’t mean to be camp-sick here and 
now, although it is hard to tell about Camp 
and not feel that way. You know how it is. 

Anyhow, I hunted around for Scatter and 
Marge, but I couldn’t find them anywhere, so 


SCATTER 


178 

I went out to the screened sleeping-porch and 
curled myself down in my cot. I decided that 
they must be ranging the Camp on some noc¬ 
turnal business of their own, and I was sleepy 
and ready for bed. However, when they 
hadn’t appeared when Tattoo was blown and 
were still absent at Taps, I began to be wor¬ 
ried. Up at Panther we Captains are respon¬ 
sible for enforcing our self-government sys¬ 
tem, which takes care of silence after Taps and 
rules like that, and so it was my job to see 
that Scatter and Marge came home to bed. 
As I lay there wondering what I had better 
do next, a strong flashlight was turned on me 
from somewhere high up in the rafters, and a 
tom-tom began a hideous pounding. 

“ Who is making that noise? ” I demanded, 
in terror lest the Doctor be prowling about 
and hear it. 

Then I saw, in the ray of the flashlight, a 
swaddled figure, silent beside my bed. It was 
wrapped in red checked blankets gleaned from 
some Counsellor’s bed, for we Campers have 
plain red blankets, and it was swaying back 
and forth to the rhythm of the drum. Then, 
of course, I realized what was coming to pass, 


THE SEVENTH VEIL 179 

for I remembered Scatter’s threat of the after¬ 
noon, and I knew that there was nothing for 
me to do but make the best of a bad situation. 
Wild horses couldn’t change Seatter’s course, 
once she had started on a tear, and the worst 
thing that I could do was to argue with her. 

Every one in the Shack was sitting up in 
bed to see the fun, so I lay back and resigned 
myself to the inevitable. 

“ Remember to report yourself to the Coun¬ 
cil in the morning for rioting after Taps,” I 
said. “ And if that’s you up there with the 
tom-tom, Marge, don’t you forget to report, 
either. They’ll probably take away your swim¬ 
ming privileges for two days, but if you don’t 
mind that, it won’t hurt my feelings any.” 

The tom-tom beat faster and faster, and the 
bulky figure beside me went into swift action. 
Spinning like a blind top, it went the length 
of the Shack and back again, and then, with a 
swoop, the Counsellor checks were unwound 
and flung upon my bed. 

Scatter now appeared, her red hair aflame, 
arrayed in the Doctor’s old red mackintosh, 
its skirts flapping about her feet, its cape 
swirling about her arms. 


i8o SCATTER 

Off came the mackintosh, on top of me, and 
the next layer was Scatter’s own red Mack¬ 
inaw, swearing at her head, loud as usual. The 
dance waxed faster, and applause came lustily 
from the spectators in the lined-up beds. 
Lights flashed on in the other Shacks across 
the way. 

“ They’re wondering what’s happening in 
poor old Shack Two,” I thought ruefully. 
“ But it can’t go on forever. The Counsellors 
are bound to hear the noise, and they will soon 
put a stop to it.” 

The red Mackinaw came off as dramatically 
as the first two veils, and after a few swoops 
by one sleeve it landed on the rafter over my 
bed. Scatter knew better than to trust that 
valuable garment to my tender care. 

Under the Mackinaw was Christine the 
cook’s pink house-dress, and under that was 
Miss Palmer’s Harvard baseball sweater. 
Never before had that priceless garment been 
seen out of the hands of its proud owner, but 
Scatter can be very persuasive when she wants 
to be, and Counsellors, as well as lesser folk, 
are as wax in her hands. 

I could hear voices approaching from the 


THE SEVENTH VEIL 181 

beach. The Counsellors were on their way to 
the rescue, and Scatter’s time was growing 
short. She realized that herself, for she 
draped the sweater on Miss Palmer’s pillow 
with great haste and stood forth in the sixth 
veil. We gasped loudly, for, if Miss Palmer’s 
sweater had been daring, here was sacrilege 
indeed. The sixth veil was none other than 
Mother Panther’s own famous swimming-suit 
—the red one with the polka dots in which she 
had learned to swim when a young girl at Hot 
Springs, the good old suit over which she had 
reminisced ever since Camp was Camp. 

How Scatter had managed to borrow that 
relic was more than I could see, but there she 
was, whirling and spinning in its abbreviated 
length. Then her hand was at its fastening. 
The seventh veil was about to be revealed! 
We all leaned forward, breathless with excite¬ 
ment. What could be underneath the suit? 

Whang! The drum hiccuped and was 
silent. The light went out, and Marge leaped 
from aloft and lit squarely on her bed with a 
great thud and a bounce. At the same time 
Scatter’s bed-spring squeaked loudly and the 
door banged behind the Counsellors. 


182 SCATTER 

“ What is going on here? ” Miss Palmer 
sounded very stern, and she turned her flash¬ 
light on me in inquiry. 

“ Nothing . . . now, Miss Palmer,” I 

answered as calmly as I could. “ Did you hear 
anything? ” 

I knew that, as long as Scatter and Marge 
were quiet for the moment, they would prob¬ 
ably stay so for the rest of the night. They 
could explain their actions to the Council in 
the morning themselves, and there didn’t seem 
to be any use in prolonging the scene that 
night. Anyhow, none of us had anything to 
say, and Miss Palmer went into her room to 
get ready for bed. Personally, I felt slightly 
sorry for Scatter; Mother Panther’s ancient 
swimming-suit couldn’t be the most comfort¬ 
able nightclothes in the world. Also I won¬ 
dered about the seventh veil, which had not 
been revealed. 

The next day was splendid weather for 
basket-ball—as cool as September. Sally Rob¬ 
bins and I strolled out to the basket-ball field 
in the morning to make sure that the tapes 
were down and that everything was ready for 
the game in the afternoon. The air was so 


THE SEVENTH VEIL 183 

clear that it seemed as if we could reach over 
and touch Pete Clifton and his wife where they 
were making hay across the pasture by the 
edge of the wood-lot. 

As we walked back to Camp again, we 
talked of Scatter’s outbreak of the night be¬ 
fore. I said that I thought it was funny, but 
Sally was not so sure about that. 

“You know, the Council may keep them out 
of sports to-day, and then where shall we be? 
After all, they’re your best forward and my 
best guard,” she said. 

“ My word! ” said I, stopping short in the 
middle of the road in my dismay. “ You don’t 
honestly think that they would do that, do you, 
Sally? I thought that they might keep them 
from swimming for a day or so, but I never 
dreamed of their keeping them out of other 
sports, too.” 

“ You can’t tell,” answered Sallv. “ You 
know how the Doctor feels about noise after 
Taps. ‘ If you can’t sleep at night, you can’t 
play in the daytime,’ and what she says, the 
Council does.” 

It was almost time for swimming, and I tore 
down to Loon Attic as fast as I could go. 


184 SCATTER 

There I found Scatter and Marge, each sitting 
on a cot, head in hands. There was no use 
asking them what was wrong. Sally had 
guessed right; they were ruled out of all sports 
for the day, and there was nothing more to be 
said about it. It was as hard on one team as 
on the other, for Marge was just as good a 
guard as Scatter was a forward, and for two 
years they had played against each other in 
almost every game. 

I felt bad at losing Scatter. We had played 
together for so long, and this would probably 
be our last game and all. And I knew that 
Scatter felt just as bad as I did about it. 

“ I’m sorry, Frosty! ” was all that she said, 
but what was the use of talking? The harm 
was done, and that was that. However, she 
didn’t feel depressed for long. Scatter always 
lands right side up, no matter what may go 
wrong. 

When rest hour was over, she and Marge 
rushed off to the Shack, and I paused to talk 
to Man o’ War. We had decided to let her 
play forward in Scatter’s place. She had 
really turned out to be a remarkably good 
athlete, in spite of her bad beginning at Camp, 


THE SEVENTH VEIL 185 

and she was fast on her feet and had a good 
eye for the basket. Of course she wasn’t as 
good as Scatter, but she was the next best we 
had. 

When I arrived at Loon Attic, I found 
Scatter sitting cross-legged on the floor, ink¬ 
ing the word “ Raggeds ” in huge black let¬ 
ters on the back of my red rain-coat. 

“ For mercy’s sake, what are you doing? ” 
I demanded in no uncertain tones. “ That’s 
my best and only rain-coat, and you’ve ruined 
it.” 

“ Well, it’s red, isn’t it? ” answered Scatter 
serenely. “ I need it in my business, Frosty, 
and anyhow, this is all worn out; you need a 
new one, my good child. Now let me see,” 
she went on briskly. “ Something old—that’s 
the rain-coat. Something new—Else’s red 
beret that she can’t wear because she’s a 
Hatchet. Something borrowed . . . some¬ 
thing borrowed. . . . What can I borrow 

that’s red? Oh, yes, I’ll take Polly’s red 
candlestick for that. Run and get it for me 
like a good girl, Marge. And something blue. 
Well, Camp color is blue. I’ll wear my Camp 
pin and that ought to bring mighty good luck. 



186 SCATTER 

There, what do you think of your mascot, 
Frosty? ” 

Dressed in the red rain-coat and beret, with 
the red candlestick in her hand, she was a dis¬ 
graceful-looking mascot, and I told her so. 

“ Anyhow, you’re all mixed up with marry- 
ings,” I argued. “ That rhyme about old and 
new and borrowed and blue goes with wed¬ 
dings, not basket-ball games.” 

“ If it is good for weddings, it ought to be 
twice as good for basket-ball games,” an¬ 
swered Scatter with conviction. “ Now step 
along, my Frosty, it’s time that we were going. 
You too, Marge, old dear. And you’d better 
take your tom-tom with you, for you Hatchets 
are going to need piles of luck to overcome 
this mascot to-day.” 

Marge left us, and we started toward the 
gathering-place of the Raggeds. Scatter whis¬ 
pered thickly in my ear: 

“ I’ve got the seventh veil with me, too, 
Frosty. We absolutely must win, do you hear, 
and at the end of the game I’ll dance all the 
way home to Loon Attic.” 

I looked her over curiously, for I wanted 
to see this mysterious seventh veil, but it wasn’t 


THE SEVENTH VEIL 187 

visible, as far as I could tell, and Scatter only 
laughed when I asked her to show it to me. 

We Raggeds marched out to the basket¬ 
ball field, singing our marching song: 

“ When the Raggeds come marching along 
With their banner, the red and the white, 

We feel that we cannot go wrong, 

That we will fight a gallant fight. . . .” 

And at the head of our column strode our 
mascot with the rain-coat flying from her 
shoulders, the old Invincible fluttering in the 
breeze, and Elsie’s tarn on the back of her head. 
The Hatchets were at the field ahead of us, 
and they laughed loudly when they caught 
sight of Scatter. But Scatter didn’t mind 
that at all; she is not afflicted with bashfulness. 

She marched the length of the field all by 
herself and once around each goal-post. Then 
she set the candlestick down in the middle of 
the center circle and revolved around it 
solemnly, after which she joined us six players 
where we had gathered in a little hollow place 
behind the south goal. We had been feeling 
rather edgy and nervous, but the sight of 
Scatter playing hoodoo to the Hatchets had 


188 SCATTER 

made us laugh it off, and even Man o’ War 
stopped braiding her fingers into crooked 
ropes. 

“ It’s going to be all right,” I assured Man 
o’ War. “ You know all the plays. They’re 
bound to put a sub guard in Marge’s place, 
and you ought not to have any more trouble 
than you do on the second team. Watch for 
the center-center signal on the toss-up, and 
when you do come up to the line, come up 
fast.” 

The long, lean child nodded, Miss Mason 
blew her whistle, and we all ran onto the field. 

As soon as we reached our places, my heart 
sank like a stone, for the Hatchets were show¬ 
ing themselves to be smarter than I had given 
them credit for being. As sub guard, they 
were using Sally. Although she was the 
Hatchet Captain, basket-ball was not her 
game. She was a wonderful diver and could 
beat every one in Camp except Scatter at 
tennis, but she lacked that last bit of speed 
and dash that makes a real basket-ball player. 
I had counted on her playing guard that after¬ 
noon, but against Man o’ War, of course. 
And that was where I had guessed wrong. 


THE SEVENTH VEIL 189 

They matched Sally up against me, and Peggy 
Bartlett, their steam-roller guard, against 
poor Man o’ War. 

“Heavens!” I groaned to myself. “It’s 
all over but the shouting.” 

I glanced at our youngster, but she didn’t 
seem to be upset, so I grinned at Sally as if 
I was just as happy as a clam in a mud bank. 

“ Ready, Hatchets? Ready, Raggeds? ” 
Miss Mason tossed the ball between the two 
center-centers, and the game began. 

What a game that was! On the first play 
I came up to the line for the ball, Sally ’way 
behind me, but when I tried to slip my pass 
between the guards to Man o’ War, there was 
no one in sight but Peggy. Of course she 
intercepted the pass and cleared the ball out 
to her centers, and, from then on, it was ham¬ 
mer and tongs, our guards and centers getting 
the ball to us forwards and Peggy walking 
away with it. 

Janice, our center-center, got more and 
more savage. She is always easily discour¬ 
aged, anyway, and when she found that none 
of our old plays were working, she began to 
drop high balls to us right under the basket. 


SCATTER 


190 

Of course any one can see where high balls 
are going, and they were an easy matter for a 
giraffe like Peggy. She just reached up in 
front of Man o’ War and knocked them down. 
The kind of game that is difficult for her is 
short, quick passes, in and out between the 
guards, and Scatter and I had that system 
worked out to a fine point. Poor Man o’ War 
was simply nowhere that half, and Peggy and 
Sally ambled about in a contented kind of way, 
cleaning up everything in sight. 

We did manage to do some scoring. Both 
sides did. What with the flock of high balls 
that Jan was dropping over and the bombard¬ 
ment that our guards were getting, we would 
have been much more stupid than we looked 
if we hadn’t managed to put in a few goals on 
the side. 

But at the end of the half the score was 
12-8 in favor of the Hatchets, and we Rag- 
geds slumped down in our hollow, discouraged. 
We weren’t used to having our best plays 
broken up so rudely, and it came very hard 
to us, somehow. 

Of course Scatter came over to the rest of 
us and listened while I spoke a few well- 


THE SEVENTH VEIL 191 

chosen words on the subject of high drop balls 
and what not to do with them. 

When I finished talking, Scatter took Man 
o’ War by the arm and dragged her off to the 
nearest blueberry patch, where she sat her 
down and engaged her in earnest and vehement 
conversation. 

“ If I were you, I’d take Man o’ War out 
and put Koko in her place,” said Jan gloomily. 

I grunted. I didn’t have much opinion of 
Jan’s judgment, she is such a born pessimist. 
But I put the question up to the team. 

“ There is no one but Scatter that could get 
away from Peg,” said Mary Martin, our side- 
center. “ Man o’ War is really the only for¬ 
ward we have left.” 

The other girls agreed with Mary, so we 
decided to let Man o’ War stav in. 

“ Perhaps Scatter can talk some speed into 
her,” remarked Mary hopefully. “ She’s wav¬ 
ing her arms at her like a windmill.” 

Well, Jan and I talked it over, and we 
decided that in the next half I should come up 
to the line, on whatever side she signaled me, 
for a short, quick pass. Then I was to bounce 
the ball around Sally and make a long shot 


192 SCATTER 

for the basket. Of course, if Man o’ War 
happened to be clear, that would be so much 
the better. Anyhow, we’d have no more high 
drop balls for Peggy to frolic with. 

Time was called, and Scatter galloped up 
with Man o’ War, fresh as watercress. I 
noticed that they had changed neckerchiefs, 
and I marveled, for Scatter is extra careful of 
that precious old Invincible of hers. It didn’t 
mean much to me, though, for we got right 
into the thick of it when the whistle blew, and 
we stayed there until the end. 

What a half that was! Man o’ War was 
everywhere at once, in front of Peggy, behind 
her, quick change! Poor Peg began to wear 
an injured look, as our long infant dodged 
about her at will. It reminded me of my old 
Airedale, Guffin, the time he was busily chas¬ 
ing a mouse and it turned around and ran up 
his hind leg. Peg had just that same look in 
her eyes while Man o’ War cut fancy circles 
and loops and squirls about her. 

We ran the score up to 22-14 in our favor, 
and even Janice cheered up. After every goal 
Scatter waved the red candlestick aloft and 
kicked her feet, and the Raggeds sang: 


THE SEVENTH VEIL 193 

C6 On the line, on the line, by the side of the line, 

Cheering for our team in rain or shine, 

Cheering for the Raggeds, and we’re cheering all 
the time, 

When we’re out on the side of the line.” 

It sounded good to us, and we gave them 
plenty of chances to sing. But then, with the 
last half almost gone, we ran into sore trouble. 
The Hatchet side-center passed to her for¬ 
ward, and our guards cleared the ball out high 
to Jan. She juggled it on her finger-tips for 
a second but couldn’t hold it, and it rolled 
over the side-line with Jan and Elsie after it, 
both stretched at full length on the ground. 

“ Hatchet ball outside! ” was Miss Mason’s 
decision, of course, and Jan and Elsie stood 
up ready to carry on, but Jan had hurt her¬ 
self. She had coasted along the ground on a 
sharp stone, and one of her knees was all gory. 
The Doctor bore her off to the infirmary, and 
we sent Koko in in Jan’s place. How we did 

have to work after that! 

% 

Mary played like a little buzz-saw, but 
there wasn’t much she could do when her 
center-center never got the jump, and the 
score crept up on us: 14, 16, 18, 20. Then 


194 SCATTER 

we scored one, making it 24-20 in our favor 
still. 

Two minutes more to play! Anything might 
happen in two minutes, and the ball went back 
and forth like a shuttle. 

24-24! It was heart-breaking for Man o’ 
War and me to have to stand there and watch 
the play at the other end of the field, our 
guards scuffling for the ball, making a clean 
pass to Mary, and Ivoko fumbling it. 

“ Mary, use your head! Bounce across cen¬ 
ter, ” I groaned, and, just as if she had heard 
me, she caught the ball and made a long 
bounce and a short, quick pass right into my 
hands. Man o’ War was ready for me, we 
passed twice between the guards, and I had 
an easy basket before me. I was sure that I 
would make it—too sure, I guess—for the ball 
balanced on the edge of the basket like a thing 
bewitched, and then it fell lazily on the wrong 
side. My very soul turned sick. Peggy, with 
her long reach, would clear it out in short 
order, and I fell back to keep Sally covered. 

But even Peg’s long arms didn’t avail her 
that time, for Man o’ War bounded up into 
the air as if she were made of rubber, caught 



THE SEVENTH VEIL 195 

the ball with both her hands, whirled, dribbled 
around Peggy, and bounced the ball off the 
backboard into the basket for as pretty a goal 
as ever was made, and, as the ball hit the 
ground, the whistle blew for time. 

What a relief! We fell upon each other’s 
necks and cheered the Hatchets, and they did 
the same for us. And then we hugged Man 
o’ War and pummeled her on her back until 
she almost choked to death, and all the Rag- 
geds crowded around like maniacs. 

Of course Scatter was the maddest of all 
that mad mob, although she carefully removed 
the Invincible from around Man o’ War’s neck 
before she began. As we started back toward 
the Camp House, she went into violent action 
again, minus the tom-tom this time, for you 
could hardly expect our Marge to help cele¬ 
brate a Ragged victory. With rain-coat fly¬ 
ing, hair aflame, Scatter led the team down the 
road. And as she whirled and spun from side 
to side, she waved the Invincible fetish aloft 
and chanted at the top of her lungs: 

“The seventh veil! The seventh veil! It 
won the game! The Invincible seventh veil! ” 


CHAPTER X 


HAPPY JACK 

When Man o’ War, our delicate hothouse 
blossom, finally stepped up and won that 
basket-ball game in the last minute of play, 
I learned a very valuable lesson in under¬ 
rating the abilities of those about me. If it 
hadn’t been for her, we should have lost the 
game along with crew and half the swimming 
and diving. I don’t mind saying, though, that 
I was a nervous wreck by the time the game 
was over and Scatter had led us triumphantly 
back to Camp; and the events of the evening 
did not help to soothe me at all. 

“We’re two nutty nut, nut, nuts; 

We’re two nutty nut, nut, nuts; 

However it ends, 

We’ll always be friends; 

We’re two nutty nut, nut, nuts.” 

Bedtime had come at last, and Scatter and 
Marge were sitting on Scatter’s cot, singing 

196 


HAPPY JACK 197 

the stupid verse over and over, rocking them¬ 
selves back and forth violently in time to the 
music. 

The noise finally became more than I felt 
I could cope with in my frazzled state of mind, 
and I bolted out of Loon Attic, slamming the 
screened door behind me. 

It was almost time for Tattoo, and up at 
Panther that means all in bed and ready for 
Taps. But there were still a few minutes in 
which I might slip off by myself and think. 
I paused by the corner of the sleeping-porch 
where Scatter and Marge were still at it. 

“ Come on, Mary, make it three nutty nuts,” 
and off they went again. 

“ They won’t be happy until they have the 
whole Shack involved,” I thought, as I prowled 
unhappily along the path, trying to think my 
problem out clearly. Now that I am at home 
and can look back on that summer, it seems 
stupid of me to have acted as I did, for there 
was only one possible solution to the problem. 
But at the time I was pretty well keyed up 
and anxious for the Raggeds to win, of course. 

It was baseball that was bothering me that 
night. I have said before that practice had 


SCATTER 


198 

gone badly. Of course we all realized that 
practices often do go badly, and we didn’t 
think much of it—at least I didn’t—until after 
supper that Tuesday night. I had gone down 
to the Shack to get my fountain pen, and quite 
by accident I overheard this conversation. 
Miss Palmer and Miss MacLean were talking 
in their room, but I didn’t pay any attention 
to them until I heard my own name. After 
that, I heard it all, and it came full force, like 
a blow in the stomach. 

“ Since she is Ragged captain and all, I 
am so sorry for her.” Miss Palmer’s tone was 
regretful. 

“ What’s the matter with her? ” This from 
Miss MacLean. 

“ She was pitching so badly at practice yes¬ 
terday. She’s stale, I think, and I don’t see 
how she can last out the game to-morrow.” 

“ That will be hard on the Raggeds. What 
will they do for a pitcher? She’s the only good 
one they have.” 

“ I don’t know. Of course the Captains are 
expected to arrange their own teams, and I 
can’t give them any advice unless they ask for 
it. And if she did ask me, I don’t think that 


HAPPY JACK 199 

I would have the heart to tell her to stay out 
of the game to-morrow. It will be her last 
chance to pitch for the Raggeds, and you know 
what that means.” 

“ But,” Miss MacLean inquired further, “ if 
she did ask you and you were stony-hearted 
enough to tell her that she’s gone stale, who 
could you advise her to put in her place? 
There is no one else who can pitch.” 

Miss Palmer’s answer came as quick as chain 
lightning, and it made me feel mighty uncom¬ 
fortable. 

“I’d tell her to put Eleanor Jackson in the 
pitcher’s box. Yes, I said Eleanor Jackson, 
and I meant it. The Raggeds haven’t a chance 
of winning the game, but they’re more apt to 
get somewhere with Eleanor than with their 
Captain. Where’s there a needle? I have a 
splinter in my thumb.” 

I stood there in Loon Attic, fighting hard 
to keep back the tears. The last baseball game 
of the season with lame Plappy Jack in the 
pitcher’s box, while I sat on the side-lines! It 
couldn’t be as bad as all that. It was too much 
to ask of a Captain. Miss Palmer had no right 
to expect it of me. 


200 


SCATTER 


I started to call out to the two Counsellors, 
for, after all, I had no business listening to the 
conversation, but they began to talk again, so 
I kept quiet. 

“Ouch! Thanks!” By the sound of her 
voice Miss Palmer was sucking her thumb. 
“ Don’t look so peculiar about Happy Jack. 
She may be lame now, but she used to play 
baseball better than any boy her age in our 
town. She lived near us before she had that 
accident, so I know. And just look at the 
way she hurls the ball in the track meets up 
here.” 

Miss MacLean made a noise that sounded 
doubtful. 

“ Yes,” she said, “ I know that she used to 
be a fine ball player before she was hurt, and 
I know she can throw a ball now. But to play 
baseball properly she would have to run as 
well as throw.” 

“ She’d have to have some one run for her, 
of course. But that’s all right. When Scatter 
twisted that ankle of hers the last time, she 
had some one to run for her in the baseball 
game the next day. Let the Crosby child run 
for Eleanor, and I think the Raggeds stand 


HAPPY JACK 201 

an even chance of winning. It would be rather 
amusing to have those two win the game, 
wouldn’t it? They were such hopeless char¬ 
acters when they arrived at Camp.” 

But I didn’t think it was amusing, not one 
bit, and Miss Palmer made me angry by talk¬ 
ing like that. 

“ What troubles we girls do have! ” sighed 
Miss MacLean. “ And now, if your thumb 
is better, I think we had best go back to the 
Camp House.” And they did, banging their 
door lustily behind them. 

Well, of course I felt sick. I wanted 
to pitch that game badly (what Captain 
wouldn’t?), and I just couldn’t imagine giv¬ 
ing way to Happy Jack, whom I had all but 
ordered off the field at the first of the season. 
And by the time I finally got away from the 
howling mob and off by myself, I didn’t know 
whether I was afoot or horseback. Was the 
game for Jack to pitch or for me to pitch? For 
me to pitch or Jack to pitch? A line from the 
Camp motto kept running through my head: 
“ Loyalty to Panther Camp ideals.” Well, 
just what were Panther Camp ideals, any¬ 
how? I was Ragged Captain. The team had 


202 


SCATTER 


elected me, and they counted on me. It 
wouldn’t be right to desert them and leave it 
to a lame girl to pull them out of trouble. 
That wasn’t loyalty, not to the Raggeds, any¬ 
how. 

Yet, if Miss Palmer were right and I had 
gone stale, it might be better for the Raggeds 
if I did step out and give my place to Happy 
Jack. But perhaps Miss Palmer wasn’t 
right. She didn’t know everything, and Jack 
might make an awful mess of the game. Of 
course, she was a good sport, but when it came 
to taking a chance on her as a pitcher, it was 
a risky business. We were hard up for 
pitchers that summer. Marion Tomkins 
pitched for the second team, if you can call 
it pitching, but she would be no earthly good 
on the first team, and there was no one else 
who could hit a barn door with a baseball, 
much less put one over the plate. Then there 
was Janice Taylor, our catcher, to think of. 
She and Happy Jack might not do well to¬ 
gether. The chances were that they wouldn’t, 
for Jan didn’t care for changes. 

Loyalty, of course, meant putting the team 
before myself, but what in the world was the 


HAPPY JACK 203 

best thing for the team? Would it be better 
to have lame Happy Jack or stale me? 

I sat down on a stone at the place where the 
trail from the Shacks joins that to the bathing 
beach. The moon path was silvery on Clear¬ 
water, and out beyond it were the near hills, 
crouching like tired beasts. Up in the Shack 
Scatter had gathered her cohorts about her, 
and apparently she had added recruits from 
other Shacks, for the noise was terrific. 

Suddenly Tattoo sounded, staccato and 
sharp, and I reluctantly started back to Loon 
Attic. 

“ Seventeen nutty nut, nut, nuts.” The 
song ended with a yell, and doors banged vio¬ 
lently as white figures rushed across the clear¬ 
ing to their own abodes. 

There was a clashing of bed-springs, and 
Scatter’s voice paged “ Frosty ” loudly as I 
slipped into the big, dim Shack and under my 
red blankets. 

When I woke up next morning, I still felt 
miserable, and breakfast tasted awful. 

“ Why don’t you eat your cereal? ” de¬ 
manded the Doctor, regarding me severely. 

“ Oh, Doctor, must I? ” I groaned. 


204 SCATTER 

“ Certainly you must,” and I did. But, 
ugh . . . 

The morning dragged by, a dead weight. 
It was scorching hot, a still, muggy, pitiless 
sort of day, and I couldn’t seem to get a deep 
breath. The line-up for the game would have 
to be announced at dinner time, and so far 
I had come to no decision about the pitcher. 

Of course I could have talked to Miss 
Palmer about it, but I knew already what she 
thought, and she would probably tell me to 
use my own judgment, anyhow. 

I could have talked it over with Scatter, but 
she would have spluttered like a soda fountain 
at the very idea of my dropping out, and so 
would any of the rest of the Raggeds, Happy 
Jack herself the most of all. I had to make the 
decision for myself. And I couldn’t. It was 
awful. 

The morning swim was a relief, and I lay 
awash in the water like an old log, soaking in 
the luscious green coolness of it, wriggling just 
enough to feel the ripples, soft and bubbly, as 
I floated. 

But that was a short respite, and the dinner 
hour came all too soon. The Doctor’s eye was 


HAPPY JACK 205 

on me, so I choked down what was on my 
plate—never ask me what it was. 

Finally the bad moment came. 

Sally Robbins stood up and announced the 
Hatchet team for the afternoon. Mother 
Panther looked at me. 

“Very well, dearie,” she said. “And who 
is going to play for the Raggeds to-day? ” 

My throat was as dry as a stick as I stood 
up, and my voice gulped on the first name as 
I started to read the batting order: shortstop, 
right field, center field, and on down the list 
to “first base, Atwell; catcher, Taylor; 
pitcher . . . Frost.” 

All the same as usual. No one looked either 
surprised or interested, and I sat down with 
my heart hammering against my ribs, my 
breath coming short and sharp. Miss Palmer 
had drawn her brows together and puckered 
her mouth into a soundless whistle as she 
pushed some bread crumbs into a mound with 
her finger. I wished that she would look at 
me with a friendly smile, but when we were 
dismissed, she left the table without a word, 
and so did I. 

Well, we all assembled after rest hour, and 



206 SCATTER 

the game began at last, as such games do, with 
a proper interchange of songs between the two 
sides. The non-players settled down to the 
task of cheering for the players, the Hatchets 
took to the field, and Miss Palmer called, 
“ Batter up! ” 

First up for us was Phyllis Ward, our short¬ 
stop. A nice hit to left field put her on first 
Polly Stevens, our center fielder, struck out. 
Nancy White got to first on balls, and Koko 
knocked out a fly which was caught in right 
field. 

That made two out and two on bases. A 
long hit meant a run, but Mary Martin struck 
out, which made it quick work for that inning, 
and we Raggeds started for the field. 

The heat seemed to rise in waves all about 
me as I walked to the pitcher’s box, and I felt 
as if I were pushing it to either side of me as 
I went. 

It was an effort to raise my arm, and the 
ball floated to Jan balloon-like on the heavy 
air, as we tossed it back and forth. 

“ Batter up! ” 

I simply had to make good. 

“ Strike one.” It felt wide to me. 


HAPPY JACK 207 

“ Ball one.” 

The next one was a foul tip. 

“ Two strikes,’' said I to myself. “ One 
more, and I’ll know I’m all right.” 

But it was another ball, and after that two 
more, and Elsie walked gaily to first base. 

“ That’s judging them, Else,” yelled the 
Hatchet rooters. “ Good work.” 

Then the next girl was up, left-handed 
Marge, my own roommate. 

“ Strike.” 

“ Good girl, Frosty! ” Scatter’s voice had 
an anxious edge to it. 

Another strike, but with it came a shooting 
pain down my neck to the top of my shoulder 
and down my upper arm. It was like a red- 
hot iron, at once searing and numbing. I 
could hardly raise my arm to throw the ball. 
It hit Marge on the leg, and then there were 
two on bases, with none out, and Sally, the 
Hatchet Captain, was coming to bat. 

I pulled myself together a bit. If she hit 
the ball with her usual strength, it meant two 
runs and maybe three. In spite of the pain 
in my arm, I must get it across. I had to. 

Jan’s lower lip was caught in her teeth, giv- 


208 


SCATTER 


ing her dark face a savage look, and, regard¬ 
less of arm and heat, I hurled them over, three 
good strikes. 

One out, but two on bases still, and my arm 
was hanging by my side like a tassel. 

It was a bad inning, but, by dint of some 
good fielding on the shortstop’s part and some 
real head-work on Scatter’s, we ended it with 
only one run against us. But it was good luck 
rather than good management, as far as I was 
concerned. 

“ What’s wrong? ” 

“ Does your arm hurt you? ” 

“What’s the matter, Frosty?” 

The barrage of questions rattled about my 
head like hailstones. 

“ Nothing’s the matter,” I answered crossly. 
“ I’ll get going next inning. You’re up, 
Libby. Line out a home run.” 

She didn’t do it, but she managed to get to 
first on a short hit. 

We had a harvest that inning, and the score 
was 3-1 in our favor when I pushed through 
the heat to the pitcher’s box once more and 
raised my aching arm. 

The less said about that inning, the better. 


HAPPY JACK 209 

Once again it was only the team that saved 
us from utter destruction. But when we 
trailed in from the field at the end of the inn¬ 
ing, the score 6-3 against us, I could feel the 
girls shaky behind me—not a pleasant feeling 
when felt for the first time—and it made me 
stubborn. After all, I was Captain, and I was 
going to stick to the team whether they liked 
it or no. 

* 

Well, we struggled through to the fifth inn¬ 
ing. The score was running high, more like a 
basket-ball game than a baseball game score: 
Hatchets 10, Raggeds 6. 

When I stalked out to pitch at the end of 
the fifth, I was seeing double. 

Jan tossed the ball to me, I fumbled it, and 
I felt the tears near. How ridiculous! I 
couldn’t remember crying in years. 

I tried to raise my arm to toss the ball back 
to Jan and found that I couldn’t. The stab¬ 
bing pain raced through my shoulder, and I 
was helpless. 

“ Batter up! ” Miss Palmer’s voice was 
strained and dry. “ Play ball, Raggeds.” 

But I shook my head, dropped my glove and 
the ball, and walked off the field. 



2 io SCATTER 

Scatter sprang to my side, her arm across 
my shoulder. 

“ Frosty! ” Her voice was sharp and fright¬ 
ened. “ You can’t quit now! ” 

“ I’m all right,” I answered gruffly. “ My 
arm has given out. Where’s Happy Jack? ” 

“ Here I am,” and she bobbed up in the 
group of Raggeds by the side-lines. 

“ Go in and pitch,” I said to her. “ It’s up 
to you now. I can’t go on.” 

Her face turned white and then flushed 
scarlet as she lurched toward me. 

“ N-n-n-not me? ” she stammered. “ You 
don’t honestly mean for me to pitch, 
Frosty? ” 

“ Yes, I do,” I answered as quietly as I 
could. “ You can pitch just as well as I can, 
and Man o’ War will run for you. Do the 
best you can, for you’re the only one that can 
get us out of this hole now.” 

She looked pathetic as she limped out there 
to my place, and I began to wonder if I had 
made a mistake, after all. Perhaps it would 
have been better to put Marion in, but the 
Raggeds were singing to Happy Jack as she 
took her place on the field: 


HAPPY JACK 211 

“ Oh, Happy, oh, Happy, 

We are singing, 

Praises ringing; 

We will never find your equal; 

Oh, Happy, here’s to you.” 

Happy Jack grinned. She wasn’t used to 
being sung to, and she looked so happy that I 
didn’t have the heart to take her out before 
she had even started. If she was too bad, I 
could put Marion in her place, but that meant 
making a present of the game to the Hatchets, 
and it was better to wait for a while and see 
what happened. 

Happy Jack could pitch; there was no 
doubt about that from the very first ball she 
hurled over the plate. And she was as cool as 
a cucumber, never the least bit rattled or dis¬ 
turbed, with a broad grin on her face even 
when, with bases full behind her, she faced 
Sally and the prospect of a three-bagger. 

She held the three-bagger to a short 
grounder, fielded it herself, and tossed it to 
Jan at home, who slammed it to Scatter at 
first—a neat double play—and the next batter 
was out on a pop fly. 

When the team came in from the field, there 



212 SCATTER 

was some explaining to be done, and some ex¬ 
horting, too. Jan wasn’t a bit pleased to be 
catching for a strange pitcher and made no 
secret of it. I talked to them all as best I could, 
pointing out the advantages of the change, and 
Scatter backed me up nobly. As for Happy 
Jack, she just beamed. 

However, when the team took the field at 
the end of the sixth with one run made up on 
that four-run deficit, they were feeling better 
about the new pitcher, and I was beginning to 
get a new idea about loyalty. 

Happy Jack certainly was a marvel—smil¬ 
ing, no matter how deep a hole she got into, 
pulling herself out by her shoe-strings and 
sheer grit, apparently confident of the team 
behind her though, after the way they had 
talked, it was hard to see why she should have 
been. And the team couldn’t help but catch 
her spirit. Before the end of the seventh they 
were as keen as she was. Jan had stopped bit¬ 
ing her lip, and Scatter was playing at first 
base like a big leaguer. 

We began to make up for lost time. By the 
first of the ninth inning we had held the 
Hatchets to two more runs and made four our- 


HAPPY JACK 213 

selves, and the score was: Hatchets 12, Rag- 
geds 11. 

“It’s now or never!” I said, as Koko 
stepped up to the plate. 

“ Ow! ” It was a grounder to shortstop, 
and Koko was out at first. “ Better luck next 
time.” 

Mary came up next and got to first by dint 
of a good slide. She took second when Libby 
Hall sacrificed. And there we were, with two 
out, a girl on second, and Scatter up. 

“ Slam it, Scatter,” I implored her as she 
left me, her red hair gorgeous in the hot sun¬ 
shine. A line of a poem popped into my head 
and turned itself around and around as she 
stood there by the plate, swinging her bat. 

“ ‘ A glory in the sunlight, seen afar and 
worshiped ... A glory in the sunlight 
. . . A glory ... a glory . . ” 

Where in the world had I heard that line 
before? Suddenly I remembered. It was the 
verse that the Opium-eater had said Sunday 
afternoon when we had thought he was a 
maniac. 

“ 4 A glory in the sunlight . . .’ Oh, 

Scatter, go it! Run! ” 


214 SCATTER 

Her bat had met the ball with a hard crack, 
and she beat the throw to first by several 
seconds. Mary landed safe on third, and Jan 
stepped up to the plate. 

Else was pitching for the Hatchets, and I 
could tell by the way she turned her head from 
side to side that she was beginning to get 
nervous. She walked Jan. The bases were 
full, and Happy Jack was up. 

She limped to the plate with Man o’ War 
pacing along beside her, ready to run in her 
place if given the chance. 

“Happy Jack!” I groaned. “Come on, 
now. You’ve got to do it. Oh, Jack! ” 

She settled herself calmly and swung her 
bat over the plate. It was a shame to see her 
splendid body so crooked and twisted as she 
stood there. But she was grinning happily, 
and, behind her, Man o’ War’s fine teeth 
showed white in her brown face as she waited 
to be set loose. 

“ They’re taking it calmly enough,” I said 
to Polly. “ If only they can get a hit! ” 

“ Calm ” was the word for them. Still grin¬ 
ning, Happy Jack stood there, and Elsie put 
two strikes across before she moved her bat. 


HAPPY JACK 215 

She fouled the next ball, and the next one was 
wide of the plate. 

And then she swung! Pivoting on her good 
leg and swinging with all her force, she lined 
it out over left field, bringing in the three 
Raggeds on bases and landing Man o’ War 
safe on third, her teeth showing in a broader 
grin than ever. The next girl up struck out 
miserably, and so it was up to us to hold our 
two-run lead through the last of the ninth if 
we were to earn the ten points that went with 
the winning of the game. 

What a job for Happy Jack! Her first 
game, as well as her last, that year! But 
Happy wasn’t the least bit sorry for herself. 
She worked like a well-trained hunting dog, 
with not a hurried motion, awkward but cer¬ 
tain, slow but sure. 

How stupid I had been at the first of the 
year when she had offered to play baseball for 
us and I had refused so abruptly! She was 
ten times the pitcher that I could ever hope 
to be, and I had kept her sitting on the side¬ 
lines the entire summer. And here she was, 
calmly saving the day for the Ragged team, 
while we had never even troubled ourselves 


216 SCATTER 

enough over her to find out what she was good 
for. Certainly I was learning a lot about 
loyalty that I hadn’t thought of before. 

The strain was almost over. The first 
Hatchet struck out. Marge got to first on a 
muffed fly. And then Happy Jack fell into 
a bit of trouble. Sally was up again, and this 
time she made a two-bagger. 

“ Glory! ” I groaned. “ If those two ever 
get around! ” 

But my anguish was wasted as far as Happy 
Jack was concerned. Slowly and deliberately, 
with perfect control, she struck out the next 
girl. 

Hatchets on second and third, and two out, 
and then heavy-hitting Peggy Bartlett came 
up to bat. 

Happy Jack grinned delightedly. Nothing 
could bother her. 

Crack! Peggy’s bat met the ball with a 
sickening, tearing sound. Marge came racing 
in from third, and up stretched Jack’s arm. 
No rush, no hurry on her part, but, in the same 
motion with which she picked the ball from 
mid-air, she slammed it to Scatter. 

Peggy was out, the game was over, and 


HAPPY JACK 217 

Happy Jack had won for the Raggeds. 
Loyalty, after all those weeks of waiting! 

As soon as the commotion had boiled down 
sufficiently, Scatter took what was left of 
Happy Jack firmly about the neck and started 
on the homeward road. 

“ Come on, every one,” she croaked, her 
voice hoarse from shouting. 

« We’re all nutty nut, nut, nuts; 

We’re all nutty nut, nut, nuts; 

However it ends, 

We’ll always be friends; 

We’re all nutty nut, nut, nuts.” 


CHAPTER XI 


MINOR RACES 

Thursday morning the Hatchets beat us at 
diving and war canoe, and Thursday afternoon 
we beat them at track by five points. There 
was only tennis ahead of us on Friday, and we 
Raggeds felt quite contented. The points we 
had won during the week were enough to off¬ 
set the extra ones the Hatchets were sure to 
get in hiking and nature quests, and if Scatter 
won the tennis championship, we knew we had 
a splendid chance for the banner. So we went 
to bed on Thursday night serene in the thought 
that the morrow would find Scatter mistress of 
the tennis court and victory clinched for the 
Raggeds. 

And that only shows that it doesn’t pay to 
be too sure. The one thing that we hadn’t 
counted on happened, and for once in her life 
Scatter was not popular with the weather man. 

Friday morning arrived in torrents of rain, 
as if some malignant spirit had turned a giant 

218 


MINOR RACES 219 

shower on us. Tennis was absolutely out of 
the question. Even if it cleared up at noon, 
the courts would be too wet for use in the 
afternoon, and so we moped about, as gloomy 
as the weather and just about as hard to get 
along with. 

After craft work in the morning some of us 
gathered together in Shack Two, regardless of 
the fact that a gorgeous fire was blazing in 
the great fireplace at the Camp House and 
that an impromptu ping-pong doubles tourna¬ 
ment was in full swing. 

Oceans of rain poured onto the roof of the 
Shack and dripped off its eaves in a silvery 
sheet. It was that kind of a drear day when 
your other sneakers are as wet as the pair you 
have on and all your clothes feel damp. 

We lolled on our beds and gloomed, all but 
Scatter, and she perched herself on the rafters 
above us and busied herself in writing an ode 
to Abey on one of the broad cross-beams. It 
can be seen there to this day if you have the 
curiosity to climb up and search for it. 

“ What rhymes with ‘ ape ’ ? ” she inquired 
brightly, pausing in her work to chew her 
pencil and peer down at us. 


220 SCATTER 

“ Crape,” grumbled Marge Woodward 
gloomily. “ Hang some up there and come on 
down. What is the point? ” 

Scatter grinned and scribbled a last line to 
her ode. Then she descended to her cot with 
a mighty clash of bed-springs. 

“ I know what we’ll do,” she proclaimed 
loudly. “ Marge needs cheering up, and this 
is the way we’ll do it. We’ll have minor races 
all up and down the Shack, and the one that 
doesn’t win will have to swim up to the store¬ 
room and ask Christine for ginger cookies for 
all the rest of us.” 

Marge groaned heavily and rolled over on 
her stomach. 

“ Why ‘ minor races ’? ” she inquired. Her 
voice was muffled from having her face buried 
in her arms. 

“ Why not? ” answered Scatter profoundly, 
and then the fun began. 

There were seven of us in the Shack that 
forenoon—Mary Martin, Polly Stevens, 
Peggy Bartlett, Happy Jack, Marge, Scatter, 
and I. Happy Jack retreated quietly into a 
corner. 

“ I’ll be referee,” she said, and I could see 



MINOR RACES 221 

that Scatter bit her lower lip in irritation at 
having proposed a pastime in which Happy 
Jack couldn’t join. However, it was too late 
to draw back tactfully then, and she turned 
her attention to Marge, who was protesting 
vehemently that she was Janice Taylor’s part¬ 
ner in the ping-pong tournament and had to 
leave us immediately. But we persuaded her 
to stay a while. 

“Jan will let you know when she wants 
you,” said Scatter. “ She never suffers in 
silence for long.” 

So Marge consented to remain with us a 
little longer, and we ran in heats of three, and 
the winners raced the winners. 

Our first race was a simple one. We started 
on Miss Palmer’s bed at one end of the Shack 
and raced down the fairway at the foot of our 
beds to Miss MacLean’s bed at the other end 
of the Shack. That was easy—just plain run¬ 
ning—and naturally Scatter won her heat, and 
the race, too. 

The next one was a trifle more difficult, for 
the course lay over the beds down the length 
of the shack. Marge had begun to see the 
point, or at any rate a point, by that time, and 


222 SCATTER 

she won that race triumphantly, all thoughts 
of ping-pong having apparently flown. 

We went on planning more and better minor 
races until ideas failed us. Of course the Shack 
looked rather disheveled by that time. Beds 
and blankets were every which way, and one 
bed was flat on the floor, due to Polly’s having 
landed her portly person upon it unnecessarily 
when she should have cleared it with a grace¬ 
ful bound. 

We reclined heavily among the debris and 
planned the best and most complicated of all 
minor races to bring that morning of true in¬ 
door sport to a fitting close, for the time was 
getting on toward dinner and we craved ginger 
cookies. Scatter and Marge had the most 
minor races to their credit, Polly and I the 
fewest. 

“ Remember ”—Marge always has to em¬ 
phasize an unpleasant thought—“ whichever 
of you two loses has to ask Christine for those 
cookies for the rest of us.” 

“ We remember,” we promised. “ Don’t 
worry.” And Scatter proceeded to lay out the 
course. 

“ We’ll all run it,” she said, “ just for the 


MINOR RACES 223 

fun, but of course it’s most important for 
Frosty and Polly. It will be under and over 
those ten beds in the middle of the Shack, then 
back on top of the five that are end to end 
against the wall. Then we will climb up to 
the rafters and walk the length of the parti¬ 
tion between the dressing-rooms and the sleep¬ 
ing-porch, each carrying a pitcher of water. 
The pitchers must be filled and in place before 
we start. Then we will sit on the last rafter, 
fill a cup from the pitcher, and drink it with¬ 
out spilling a drop. Then we will descend 
gracefully to Miss MacLean’s bed and race 
back down the fairway to Miss Palmer’s bed. 
How’s that? ” she asked, swelling with pardon¬ 
able pride at her inventiveness in the art of 
minor racing. 

“ How are you going to race on the parti¬ 
tion? ” inquired Happy Jack from her shel¬ 
tered corner. “ It’s only six inches wide, and 
there’s not room to pass any one on it.” 

“ Oh, that! ” said Scatter lightly, and I could 
tell by her tone that that particular problem 
had not occurred to her before. “ Oh, that’s 
easy. By the time we get to the partition, one 
person will be bound to be ahead, and she will 


SCATTER 


224 

have the right of way and may climb up and 
seize the first pitcher in line. If any one can 
catch up with any one else while she is crossing 
the partition and can touch her from behind, 
they are the same thing as passed and must 
drop out of the race. Is that clear? ” 

We all said it was, and we drew lots for the 
first heat, which proved to be between Marge 
and Mary and me. Scatter lined us up on the 
ledge beside Miss Palmer’s bed. I felt slightly 
troubled at the introduction of water into the 
game, for as a rule, when that appears, a good 
old-fashioned rough-house generally follows, 
and, as Captain, I was responsible for the con¬ 
dition in which the Shack was left that noon. 
On the other hand, I was one of the heavy 
losers whose duty would lead to Christine, so 
I honestly couldn’t question the race. It 
would have sounded mighty bad. 

So I salved my conscience with the thought 
that I really wasn’t on duty in the Shack at 
the time. In fact, I might just as well have 
been up at the Camp House playing ping- 
pong, and if that had been the case, probably 
no one else would have given a thought to 
throwing water all over the place. 


MINOR RACES 225 

Therefore I climbed up on the ledge with 
Marge and Mary, and at Scatter’s word of 
command I went leaping off down the Shack 
with them. The course was over Miss Pal¬ 
mer’s bed, under the next one, over the third 
one, and so on. In one place some one had 
stood an extra bed on top of another bed, and 
that wasn’t so easy to climb without breaking 
your neck. We kept very even until we came 
to that. Then Mary caught her bloomers on 
a comer of the bed and came apart with an 
agonized r-r-rip. She kept running, however, 
with a long tatter trailing behind her, but it 
caused her to lose ground considerably. 

“ Come on, there, Frosty! I’m betting on 
you! ” Scatter had climbed to one of the raft¬ 
ers and was cheering us on furiously. 

Marge and I scrambled and leaped and 
bumped our knees, neck and neck, but I beat 
her in the bounding run along the five beds 
placed end to end and touched the wall of the 
partition first. Marge was close behind me, 
and Mary a near third. 

I climbed to the top of the partition, picked 
up my pitcher, and started to edge along the 
six-inch beam between the sleeping-porch and 


226 SCATTER 

the dressing-rooms. What a job! I’m no 
good at balancing acts, and I had to keep stop¬ 
ping to waver back and forth, clutching my 
pitcher with one hand in a grip of death, 
flourishing the other like a windmill wing. I 
was an easy victim for Marge, who advanced 
upon me with little swift, gliding steps and 
beat me on the shoulder with her free hand. 

“ Oh, Frosty, how could you? ” mourned 
Scatter. “ And you had such a splendid 
lead! ” 

But I didn’t care, and I descended thank¬ 
fully to terra firma with a mighty splash of 
water from my pitcher. As far as I was con¬ 
cerned, I would fetch ginger cookies five times 
a week rather than walk that partition once. 
To me, it was one of the lowest forms of in¬ 
door sport, and I was glad to be safely off the 
beam. 

Marge won that heat, and Scatter won the 
next one, with Polly coming in last again. 

“ Never mind, Frosty,” she grinned. “ We’ll 
go for ginger cookies together. Come on.” 

“ Wait a minute.” Scatter held us back. 
“ Marge and I have to race this off and see 
who is winner for the morning. And you must 


MINOR RACES 227 

ask Christine for an extra fine prize for which¬ 
ever one of us wins.” 

Scatter and Marge cleared the ten beds in 
good time and came thundering down the long 
five against the wall, with Scatter in the lead 
by a good margin. She reached the partition 
first, flew up it with a rush, grabbed her 
pitcher, and started to edge along. But here 
Marge began to cut down the lead, slipping 
along with uncanny speed on that narrow beam 
with those insidious little gliding side-steps of 
hers. 

It was exciting, and I was beginning to hold 
my breath when Happy Jack, who was stand¬ 
ing in the corner nearest the Camp House, 
said suddenly, “Here comes Janice Taylor 
down the path, Marge.” 

“ Let her come,” muttered Marge, “ and tell 
her I’ll be ready in a minute.” 

I don’t know why it is that rainy days so 
often produce rough-houses, but they do, and 

this one was no exception to the rule, although 

> 

I still think that all would have been well and 
Scatter would have won the race and descended 
graciously to do no more damage to herself 
than to dull her appetite for dinner with ginger 


228 


SCATTER 


cookies, if Jan hadn’t burst upon the scene at 
just this wrong moment. 

She came splashing down the path with her 
rain-coat thrown over her head, just splutter¬ 
ing firecrackers at Marge. 

“ Marge Woodward, where are you? Have 
you gone to sleep in the Shack? You said you 
were coming right back to play ping-pong 
with me, and every one in Camp is waiting for 
us to take our turn, and . . .” 

Scatter was nearing the far end of the parti¬ 
tion, Marge was gliding up on her like a ser¬ 
pent, and I couldn’t take my eyes off them. 
Neither could Polly or Mary or Peggy or 
Happy Jack. 

I forgot that I was dealing with the uncer¬ 
tain-tempered Janice, and I tried to make her 
keep quiet. 

“ Plush,” I said sharply, my attention 
riveted aloft. “ You’ll ruin this race.” 

“ I’ll not hush. I want Marge,” glowered 
Jan, and she disappeared around the corner 
of the Shack. 

“ Let her go ” was all the notice I paid her, 
for Scatter had arrived at the far rafter over 
Miss MacLean’s bed and was carefully filling 


MINOR RACES 229 

her enamel cup from the pitcher in her hand. 
With a last long glide Marge came beside her 
and began to do likewise. 

And it was at that breath-taking moment 
that Jan slammed open the screened door of 
Loon Attic and came bursting out onto the 
sleeping-porch. 

It was too much for Scatter’s balance. She 
gave a lurch, dropped pitcher and cup to save 
herself from falling, and of course, as luck 
would have it, splattered Jan plentifully in her 
face as she appeared on the scene of action. 

Scatter uttered a horrified gasp and leaped 
lightly to her own bed, and I could tell by the 
light in her eye that she was about to apologize 
and be polite. But she reckoned without Jan, 
whose temper is uncertain at the most favor¬ 
able of times. The douse of cold water must 
have made her lose it completely, I guess, for 
she picked up the nearest pitcher of water that 
we had left on the floor after the last race and 
hurled it at Scatter. And with it she hurled 
the unmentionable, the unforgivable—“ Red¬ 
head!” 

The whole pitcherful of water caught Scat¬ 
ter in her chest just as she landed on the bed. 



230 SCATTER 

For a moment I was afraid she was going to 
fly at Jan like an infuriated terrier. I could 
hear her breath catch as if some one had hit 
her in the middle, and her face went just as 
white as a sheet. 

Then, with an awful war whoop, she bent 
low and darted under Jan’s upraised arm into 
the sacred precincts of the Counsellors’ room. 

“ Why use water when there’s ink? ” she 
roared, and almost immediately she reappeared 
on top of the partition, holding the large and 
impressive bottle of ink with which the Man¬ 
agement kindly furnishes all Counsellors’ 
rooms. 

Janice gave one horrified look at Scatter 
and dove under the nearest bed. 

Scat had chosen a strategic position, for she 
commanded both sides of the partition. Dress¬ 
ing-rooms and sleeping-porch were alike to 
her, and Jan knew her well enough to be sure 
that she would not stop at ink or anything else 
when her face had that white set look on it and 
her hair flamed red as a beacon light. 

In the meantime our Marge had carefully 
filled her mug and drained it dry. Then she 
descended slowly from the rafter, strolled 



I WAS AFRAID SHE WAS GOING TO FLY AT 3 AN. -Page 230 













MINOR RACES 231 

down the shack to Miss Palmer's bed, and an¬ 
nounced in dulcet tones, “ I won that minor 
race, Scatter. And I’m quite ready for ping- 
pong whenever you are, Janice.” 

Scatter tossed a threatening look in her gen¬ 
eral direction and raised the ink bottle menac¬ 
ingly. 

Marge chuckled banefully, and then she set 
briskly to work to clean up the Shack. 

I will say one thing for Marge: she is a tidy 
girl, and a decided asset as a roommate for 
two who aren’t as tidy as they might be. The 
rest of us began to help her in a half-hearted 
sort of way. All thought of ginger cookies and 
prizes had flown from our heads, and we 
watched the drama at the end of the Shack 
with that helpless feeling of uncertainty one 
has when events get beyond control. And I, 
for one, was apprehensive. 

Of course the whole affair had started as 
nothing but a joke, but it was ending badly 
and I was worried. If Jan should be foolish 
enough to force the issue and Scatter really 
did throw that ink bottle, she might well be 
kept off the tennis court the next day, and I 
simply couldn’t cope with that thought. 


SCATTER 


232 

Things had reached an impasse, and Happy 
Jack limped bravely to the rescue. 

“Pax, Scatter,” she said quietly. “Jan 
didn’t understand when she rushed in like that. 
Come on down with that ink bottle and go and 
put on dry clothes.” 

“ I’ll not,” answered Scatter firmly. “ I’ll 
not put it down until she apologizes. And if 
she tries to come out without apologizing, I’ll 
hurl it at her, and see if I care! I didn’t mean 
to throw water at her and I am not red-headed, 
and I came down to tell her how sorry I was 
that the pitcher slipped. She had no business 
to deliberately drown me like that. It was a 
mean thing to do, and I’ll sit here all night, 
if I have to, until she says she’s sorry.” 

“ I’ll crawl out when it gets dark.” Jan’s 
voice came muffled from under the bed. 

“ I will hear you,” answered Scatter quickly, 
“ and I’ll throw ink all over you and that bed.” 

Scatter knew that she had the upper hand, 
and a note of awful glee was strong in her 
voice. 

Happy Jack looked puzzled and said noth¬ 
ing. The rest of us continued to clear up the 
Shack until it really looked almost neat again. 


MINOR RACES 233 

In fact, one would not think for a moment 
that it had been the recent scene of minor 
races. 

Scatter fondled the ink bottle lovingly. She 
took out its cork and peered into its depths 
with a purr of satisfaction. 

“Yes, Janice Taylor,” she remarked con¬ 
versationally, “ this Camp is coming to a sad 
end when one of its law-abiding citizens can’t 
sit quietly upon a rafter of a rainy morning 
and take an innocent drink without being 
brutally assaulted with a pitcher of water, just 
because in her perturbation the poor girl let 
fall a few drops of moisture on the enraged 
visage of her assailant.” 

Jan snorted disdainfully, but Happy Jack 
laughed and so did the rest of us. 

The Shack was all neat and tidy at last, and 
I edged up to the scene of the conflict. 

“ Oh, come on, Jan,” I said. “ Tell Scatter 
that you are sorry. Be a good sport. It 
would be awful if the Management thought 
that Scatter was in trouble again and were to 
rule her out of tennis to-morrow. Once a week 
is enough.” 

“ Don’t be so humble, Frosty,” protested 


234 SCATTER 

Scatter from aloft, but I didn’t pay any atten¬ 
tion to her. 

“She started it,” grumbled the prostrate 
Janice. “ I just came down here to get Marge, 
and she hurled water at me. But it would be 
awful for the Raggeds if she couldn’t play 
tennis, so I’ll come out and say nothing more 
about it.” 

Thereupon she stuck her head out from 
under the bed, turtle-wise, and proceeded to 
scramble out after it, only to retreat into her 
lair again with great and unseemly haste, for 
Scatter raised the ink bottle aloft, its cork 
withdrawn and fiery menace in her eyes. 

“ Stay there! ” she warned her abject victim. 
“ There is something for you to say before you 
can emerge, Janice Taylor.” 

“ Oh, I’m sorry I soaked you, Scatter, and 
your hair isn’t red at all. It’s as inky black as 
a raven’s wing.” Jan was laughing now. She 
flies into tantrums with ease, but she flies out 
again just as easily. 

Scatter dropped off the rafter and put the 
ink back into the Counsellors’ room, and at 
that moment young Charlotte Hunter came 
scuttling breathlessly down the soppy path. 


MINOR RACES 235 

“ Frosty! ” she panted urgently. “ Mother 
Panther wants you and Scatter to come to the 
office right away.” 

My heart skipped two beats and I gasped 
out loud. How could she have heard about the 
fracas as soon as this? 

“ Better change your clothes, Scatter, be¬ 
fore you catch your death of cold,” Happy 
Jack called after us, as we trailed gloomily 
through Loon Attic and out to the porch. 
Scatter’s only answer was to take a heavy blue 
sweater from a hook in passing and haul it on 
over her head, and we betook ourselves toward 
the office with slow footsteps and a becomingly 
somber demeanor. 

Fear of every sort of penalty, from loss of 
swimming privileges to solitary confinement in 
the infirmary, was in our minds. Of course, 
minor races and a trifling misunderstanding 
with Janice Taylor are not really criminal acts, 
and Scatter didn’t really throw the ink, and 
the Shack was all tidy again. Yet you never 
can tell what is going to happen next, and this 
call to the bar of justice followed too closely 
on the heels of the events in the Shack to be 
comfortable. 


236 SCATTER 

We found Mother Panther alone and en¬ 
throned in state at her desk. She was writing 
a letter. 

“ Sit down, girls.” Her tone was absent and 
distrait. “ I must finish this letter before 
dinner.” 

We sat drearily upon the little bench and 
watched her bent head and busy hand, wonder¬ 
ing what horrid fate awaited us when the letter 
was complete. 

“ Now, girls.” She turned to us at last. 
There was something of vast importance on 
her mind; that was plain. 

“ You’ve been Campers here with us for 
three years? ” 

“ Yes, Mother Panther,” we said bravely. 
It was clear that she was leading up to our 
duty as old Campers and dependable girls. 
Scatter humped her back gloomily, and I 
gazed at my hands. The blow was about to 
fall. Might it be merciful and swift! 

“ And what are your plans for another 
summer? ” Mother Panther pursued her sub¬ 
ject with calm, but I was puzzled, for I failed 
to see just where that particular question led 
her. 


MINOR RACES 237 

“Why . . . I . . . we don’t know. 
I ... we hadn’t thought that far ahead.” 
I answered for both of us. “ Our families 
think that we are too old to come back to Camp 
again.” 

“ Well, dearies ”—Mother Panther bent a 
piercing eye upon our abject persons—“ the 
Management has had a conference . . .” 

If it were as bad as all that, we were certainly 
doomed. We cowered lower before the 
majesty of law and order, and Mother Panther 
went on. 

“ . . . And we have decided to ask you 

two girls to return next year as Junior Coun¬ 
sellors to help Miss Palmer with water sports 
and Miss MacLean with tennis.” 

The shock was too great! We were stricken 
dumb with amazement and relief. Mother 
Panther smiled kindly on us. 

“ Wouldn’t you like to be Counsellors, you 
two? ” she asked cordially, and we nodded our 
heads in unison. 

“ Only . . .” I said. “ Only . . .” 

“ Only what? ” Mother Panther was curi¬ 
ous. 

“ I’d like to be a Counsellor next year if the 



238 SCATTER 

Raggeds win to-morrow. If they don’t, I am 
going to try to persuade my family to let me 
come back as a Camper to have another try for 
the banner.” 

“ Me, too,” said Scatter, and Mother Pan¬ 
ther saw our point. 

“ Very well, dearies,” she said. “You 
needn’t make up your minds until to-morrow 
night when the banner is given out. But if the 
Raggeds win, I know that you will accept? ” 

We nodded our heads again, and Mother 
Panther changed the subject. 

“We have just had a Council meeting,” she 
said, which explained why no Counsellor had 
looked in at our recent minor racing. “ And 
we think it would be nice to have our annual 
masquerade dance to-night instead of next 
week as usual. You girls are disappointed 
over the postponement of the tennis matches, 
I know, and it would keep you busy all after¬ 
noon getting ready for the party.” 

“ Oh, Mother Panther,” gloated Scatter, 
“ that’s a gorgeous idea. We haven’t had a 
party for ages, and I am just dying to dance. 
Frosty and I will go together as the Owl and 
the Pussycat, and we’ll get one of the canoes 


MINOR RACES 239 

for the Pea-green Boat, and we’ll make Marge 
and Koko go as the Piggywig and the Turkey 
who lived on the Hill. It will be more 
fun . . ” 

Mother Panther interrupted Scatter’s rap¬ 
tures with a smile. 

“ We have another plan for the Captains, 
dearie,” she said. “ We want them to go to¬ 
gether and lead the Grand March. You two 
won’t mind being separated this once, will 
you? ” 

My face fell dolefully, for Scatter and I 
always went to parties together, but Scatter 
merely looked thoughtful and began to pull 
her forelock with vigor. 

“ No, we don’t mind a bit,” she assured 
Mother Panther. 4 4 In fact, I rather think 
that I have other plans myself for to-night.” 
And with no further explanation she bolted 
from the office and was seen no more until 
dinner time. 


CHAPTER XII 


CATERPILLARS 

It stopped raining after rest hour, and 
Happy Jack, Scatter, Marge, Koko, Man o’ 
War, and I betook ourselves out on the lake 
for an hour’s relaxation in Tin Tub before 
completing our arrangements for the party. 
Man o’ War had long wanted to try her hand 
at fishing, and, this being a cloudy afternoon, 
it seemed as if the right moment had come. 

“ Caterpillars,” remarked Scatter severely 
to her young protegee, as we drifted about in 
the neighborhood of Nirvana, " ought to make 
better bait than earthworms.” 

“ But,” replied Man o’ War mildly, “ I like 
worms better. They’re smoother.” 

Scatter pulled a pond lily into the boat and 
sniffed it loudly. 

“ Who is going with whom to the masquer¬ 
ade to-night? ” she inquired brightly. I was 
glad that she had brought up this subject, for 

240 


CATERPILLARS 241 

I knew that she had an idea and I wondered 
what it was. 

“ Koko and I are going together,” said 
Marge, “ but we won’t tell what as.” 

“ I’m going with Elsie,” mumbled Man o’ 
War from over her fish-line. 

Happy Jack remained silent, for dancing 
parties were not for her. Scatter finished the 
roll-call: 

“ And Frosty is taking Sally, and my part¬ 
ner is Happy Jack.” 

Happy Jack looked at her for a moment 
with her mouth wide open. Then she flushed 
resentfully. 

“ I don’t know what you mean by that, Scat¬ 
ter,” she said. “ I can’t dance, and you know 
it. Don’t try to be nice to me. I don’t like 
it.” 

Scatter grinned impishly and tugged at her 
forelock. 

“ I don’t know how to be nice,” she said, 
“ and imagine wanting to dance.” 

I looked at her as if she were bereft of her 
wits, for only a short time before she could 
hardly wait for the dance to begin and now 
she had changed her mind completely. 


242 SCATTER 

“ Same old costumes from the costume box,” 
she grumbled. “ Same girls we’ve played with 
all summer, dressed like sailors in pajama 
trousers and white hats. Just one horrible 
sameness, but you and I are going to be dif¬ 
ferent, Happy. I promise you that.” 

Happy Jack looked perplexed. Apparently 
she was not able to decide whether Scatter was 
fooling or not. But Koko laughed. She was 
lying prone in the stem of the boat, watching 
her reflection float along beneath her. She 
laughed again, finding the effect distorting 
and pleasing. 

“What’s the matter, Koko? Seasick?” 
drawled Marge, hoping for the worst as usual. 

“ No, I’m not seasick.” Koko’s voice came 
muffled from over the side. “ I’m wondering 
if Scatter would feel better about the masquer¬ 
ade if there were real sailors there to dance 
with. Commander Pond, for instance.” 

Man o’ War gave a surprised chuckle and 
looked around from her fishing with the air of 
a startled fawn. 

“ What’s the matter, child? ” asked Scatter. 

“ His sister went . . . Ooh . . .” She 
broke off in the middle of her sentence and 


CATERPILLARS 243 

hauled in her line. She was rewarded with the 
prize of a baby perch, a dismal, flapping young 
thing, over which she yearned with loving 
pride. 

“ That fish is not grown up yet,” declared 
Scatter. “ Give it back to its mother and tell 
us what you know about Commander Pond.” 

Man o’ War parted with her perch re¬ 
luctantly and threaded another worm on her 
hook. 

“ Oh-h-h, Commander Pond . . .” she 

said. “ His sister went to Rockland to see him 
this afternoon. She told me about it this morn¬ 
ing when we were in the tank house, printing 
some pictures. We got a nice one of you in 
Tin Tub, Scatter,” she added conversationally. 
She was obviously not impressed with the im¬ 
portance of her news. 

But Scatter thrust this remark brusquely 
aside. Turning on her seat, she eyed Man o’ 
War with a piercing gaze. 

“ Put that worm down and explain your¬ 
self,” she said. “ Is Commander Pond really 
in Rockland? Is he coming over here? ” 

Man o’ War swallowed meekly and obeyed 
her mentor. 


244 SCATTER 

“ His ship came into Rockland yesterday, 
and Miss Pond and Miss Hunt went to tea on 
board with him to-day. I don’t know whether 
he is going to come here or not. She didn’t 
say.” 

There was deep and poignant silence in Tin 
Tub while we pondered on the tantalizing 
nearness of the hero of the nation, and Scatter 
pulled at her forelock until it all but broke 
loose from her scalp. 

“ Well, anyhow,” she declared finally, 
“ you simply have to be my partner at the 
dance to-night, Happy Jack. I don’t intend 
to dance, and I need cheering up.” 

Happy Jack started to speak, but Marge 
interrupted her. 

“ Don’t be stupid,” she said. “ Imagine go¬ 
ing to any party that Mother Panther is run¬ 
ning, and not dancing. We’ll all have to dance 
to-night, regardless, and Happy Jack, too, 
probably.” 

“ I wish that you would all stop talking like 
that,” protested Happy Jack bitterly. It was 
the first time all summer that I had seen that 
old resentful manner that she had first worn 
when she came to our school, and I didn’t like 


CATERPILLARS 245 

it. “ You’re just trying to be nice to me, 
Sarah Atwell, and I just . . . can’t . . . 
s-stand t-that.” Tears were perilously near 
the surface, but Scatter didn’t let that ruffle 
her. 

“ I’m not being nice, honestly I’m not,” she 
assured Happy with a grin. “ I merely have 
a marvelous idea, and you have to do it with 
me because Frosty has gone and gotten her¬ 
self another partner and I can’t do it alone. 
Listen, we’re going to have a contest, you and 
Marge and Koko and I, and whichever couple 
wins will have for a prize the other couple’s 
second helps of ice-cream on Sunday. And 
the contest is this: to see which of us can go to 
the party to-night and stay there all evening 
without dancing once and without being 
recognized. Come on, Marge. It will be loads 
more fun than dancing.” 

But Marge was tactlessly blind to Scat¬ 
ter’s noble effort to draw Happy Jack into the 
party, and she refused to be stampeded. 

“ If you’re at the party, you’ll have to dance, 
whether you’re recognized or not.. That’s what 
the party is for,” she protested. “ So what is 
the point? ” 


246 SCATTER 

“ That’s just what I say,” broke in Happy 
Jack. “ What is the point? I still think that 
you’re trying to be nice to me, Scatter, and I 
thank you very much, but I still don’t like it.” 

“ Oh, Happy, don’t be so tiresome,” argued 
Scatter. “ Can’t you see that this will be loads 
more fun than dancing? I won’t tell you 
aloud because I don’t want the others to hear, 
but come here.” She pulled Happy to her 
and began to whisper in her ear, and little by 
little Happy’s face lost that haunted, sullen 
look and regained its usual beaming expres¬ 
sion, and at the same moment Koko suddenly 
understood what Scatter was trying to do. 

“ Come on, Marge,” she cried. “ Let’s beat 
them at their own game and have extra seconds 
of ice-cream on Sunday. I have a marvelous 
idea for a costume. No one will ever recog¬ 
nize us, and I’m positive that we can’t dance.” 

Marge remained uncertain but was willing 
to be shown, and Scatter was in a fever heat. 

“ Reel up your line, Man o’ War,” she com¬ 
manded. “ Happy Jack and I have to go 
home and get busy if we are going to be ready 
for the party in time. And now, every one 
promise by every moon and yonder star not 


CATERPILLARS 247 

to tell anybody about this contest until the 
masquerade is over. We don’t want our plans 
interfered with.” 

“ Let me tell Sally,” I begged. “ As long 
as she is going to be my partner, it would be 
fun for her to know about it, too.” 

“ Very well, tell Sally if you want, and you 
and she can judge which couple is the winner,” 
replied Scatter with a gay laugh which quite 
concealed any lurking disappointment she may 
have been feeling at foregoing an evening of 
dancing for Happy’s sake. 

When we came ashore in Tin Tub, Mother 
Panther was waiting for me, with Sally by her 
side. Mother Panther is an enthusiast, and 
she does get up the most marvelous parties 
in the world. 

“ Now, dearie,” she said, as she seized upon 
me, “ you and Sally are going to surprise 
every one to-night by going to the party in the 
most appropriate costumes. I’m going to 
dress you myself, so come along. Don’t you 
think it would be fun if you went as Hatchet 
and Ragged Mountains? ” 

“ No, Mother Panther,” said I politely. 

“ No, ma’am,” said Sally. 


SCATTER 


248 

Mother Panther laughed just as pleasantly 
as if we had accepted the invitation to be 
mountains, and from that moment on I was 
too busy and unhappy to give Scatter and 
Happy Jack more than passing consideration. 
Of course it wasn’t easy to make two medium¬ 
sized girls look like mountains, and the result 
was mostly symbolic, red rags for me and 
green paper hatchets for Sally. Her costume 
was prettier than mine, but that didn’t bother 
me much then. 

I told Sally about the contest that was go¬ 
ing on between my two roommates and their 
partners, and as we led the Grand March 
about the Camp House, we watched for out¬ 
landish characters that might be expected not 
to dance. Immediately behind us were two 
ghoulish figures clad in bandages from head to 
foot. The Doctor must have spent a busy 
hour or so making them up. They were not 
recognizable, but they were well able to dance. 

Behind them were two Hawaiian maidens 
with hay aprons gathered from the field next 
to the baseball diamond, and behind them was 
the usual array of sailors, Gold Dust Twins, 
and farmers with their wives. Every one 


CATERPILLARS 249 

looked not only able, but eager, to dance, and 
Sally and I began to be excited about our 
friends. 

It was not until we had marched all the way 
around the room and had come back to the 
entrance again that we saw anything that 
looked unable to dance in a normal way. They 
were the last couple in line, and as soon as we 
saw them, Sally and I poked each other. 

“ There is one pair of them,” I whispered. 
“See that couple in the barrel.” 

We couldn’t tell which pair they were, but 
they surely were a laughable sight. They were 
inserted into an enormous barrel, which they 
held in place with their finger-tips. They had 
pulled down over their faces bathing-caps in 
which eye holes had been cut, and bathing-suits 
were their other garments besides the barrel. 

“ That is probably Scatter,” laughed Sally, 
as they stumbled awkwardly along, one behind 
the other. 

“ Well, maybe,” I answered, “ but if it is, 
where in the world are Marge and Ivoko? 
That’s the last couple in line. Does either of 
the barrel twins limp? ” 

But the barrel twins were not the last couple 


250 SCATTER 

in line. They marched past us, and we started 
along after them and almost fell headlong over 
the pair that was last in line, for from the 
shadow of the writing-table there emerged at 
our feet a most remarkable spectacle. Two 
enormous caterpillars, such as are common in 
the woods in summer, crawled laboriously out 
and added themselves to the tail of the proces¬ 
sion behind the barrel twins. 

One of them was grey with tufts of rock 
lichen all over its body and with great red 
and black eyes on its head. The other was 
green with yellow eyes, tufts of white pine for 
eyebrows, and little feelers of ground-pine 
growing out of its mouth. In profound silence 
and amid the cheers of the multitude, they 
wormed their difficult way across the floor and 
lay inert upon the ground in a corner by the 
stage, helpless in the long cambric bags from 
which their costumes were formed. 

“That’s Scatter!” I gurgled to Sally, as 
soon as I could speak plainly for laughing. 

“ I don’t know.” Sally disagreed with me. 
“ Somehow, I think that Scatter would be 
more apt to take to a barrel. Anyway, those 
caterpillars will never be able to dance unless 


CATERPILLARS 


251 

they get undressed first, and no one will recog¬ 
nize them, either.” 

That was true; the caterpillars certainly 
couldn’t dance, but the barrel twins didn’t get 
off so easily. After Mother Panther had the 
party in full swing, she considered their prob¬ 
lem, and, before you could say “ Jack Robin¬ 
son,” she had turned one of them around so 
that she faced her partner, and off they had to 
dance, barrel and all. Yet the barrel so 
cramped their style as they walked about in 
time to the music that we could not tell 
whether or not either of them limped. 

One couple had won the contest as far as 
dancing was concerned, but so far it was im¬ 
possible to tell which pair it was. 

We danced and we danced, and at last 
Mother Panther stepped to the middle of the 
floor and made an announcement. 

“ Every one follow me to the beach,” she 
said. “ The moon has come out and it’s a 
lovely night. Don’t unmask until you get 
there. We are going to have a surprise.” 

So we all trudged off down the path, stum¬ 
bling over the rocks and hoping the surprise 
was eats. 


252 SCATTER 

“ What are those caterpillars going to do? ” 
Sally inquired, when we were almost there. 
“ They will have to unmask before they can 
come this far.’’ 

“ Watch for them,” I answered. “ They 
mustn’t be recognized before the unmasking.” 

When we got to the beach, we found a fire 
burning, and we made a circle around it and 
guessed the identity of the different masked 
figures. The barrel twins were Marge and 
Koko, after all, and they climbed out of their 
barrel with whoops of relief, and we all helped 
ourselves to ginger cookies and lemon ice, 
which appeared as the surprise. There were 

4 

also stacks of marshmallows to toast over the 
fire, a present from the Management. 

“ This is a good party,” I said to Sally. 
“ I’m going up to get Scatter and Happy 
Jack. It’s a shame for them to miss all this.” 

“ They’ve won the contest, though,” laughed 
Sally. “ They’ll have plenty of ice-cream on 
Sunday.” 

“ That’s right,” I answered, as I started up 
the path to rescue my stranded roommate. 
But I hadn’t gotten beyond the circle of fire¬ 
light before I discovered my errand of mercy 


CATERPILLARS 253 

to be totally unnecessary, for coming toward 
me from the darkness was a most amazing trio 
—Scatter and Happy Jack, clad in immacu¬ 
late Camp uniform, one on either side of an 
imposing naval officer, gleaming in his white 
summer suit. 

Mindful of my own unpleasing tattered ap¬ 
pearance, I shrank back into the mob around 
the fire, and Scatter politely led her captive 
up to Mother Panther and introduced him in 
her best manner. 

“ Mrs. Newell, may I present Commander 
Pond?” 

Commander Pond himself! Before Scat¬ 
ter could think of introducing her roommates 
to the hero, I had to get away, and I wasn’t 
the only person with that idea, for, as I fled up 
the path to Loon Attic, bitter at the fate that 
had sent me to the party clad in such unseemly 
attire, I saw two shadowy forms in bathing- 
suits racing along ahead of me. Marge and 
Koko were also betaking themselves and their 
costumes far from the bright light of the fire. 

It wasn’t long before Tattoo sounded, call¬ 
ing all Panthers to bed, and before Taps we 
heard the whole story from Scatter as she sat 


254 SCATTER 

cross-legged on her trunk, twisting her fore¬ 
lock on her finger. 

“ When you people ran off and left us,” she 
chuckled, “ we couldn’t decide whether to stay 
in the caterpillar costumes or follow you to 
the beach. While we were arguing, we heard 
a car outside the Camp House, and the next 
thing we knew, the door by the stage opened 
with a bang and some one stumbled headlong 
over us—it was dark in that corner—and went 
full length on the floor. He had a nice voice, 
in spite of what he was saying, and we began 
to laugh. We couldn’t see him, of course, but 
he must have had a shock when he saw what 
was laughing at him on the floor. Miss Pond 
and Miss Hunt were with him, and I told them 
if they would rip us around the edges, we 
would emerge and be polite. Of course we 
knew by then who he was, and we were both 
simply thrilled to a crisp. 

“ Well, he started to rip us with his own 
knife, and we began to come out, but I sud¬ 
denly remembered that, between water fights 
and minor races and crawling about on the 
floor in those thin bags, we must be terribly 
dirty . . ” 


CATERPILLARS 255 

Scatter paused for breath, and Koko shiv¬ 
ered with excitement. 

“ What on earth did you do? ” she begged 
nervously. 

“Well,” Scatter resumed, hugging her 
knees in the ecstasy of her recollections, “ we 
said we would come right back, and we rolled 
off into the kitchen, crawled out of our skins, 
and ran for the Shack and clean clothes. And 
when we came back, Miss Pond introduced us 
properly and told us we could escort the hero 
down to the beach and refreshments.” 

She paused again, grinning tantalizingly. 
Then she went on, once more almost incoherent 
with excitement. 

“ But listen to the best of all. Do you re¬ 
member what I told you about caterpillars 
when we were in Tin Tub this afternoon? 
Well, these two caterpillars have caught an 
invitation to tea on Commander Pond’s ship 
next week, and Mother Panther says that we 
may go and she will chaperon us herself. Oh, 
Frosty, it’s just too good to be true! ” 

Marge and I looked drear and most unbe¬ 
lieving. Scatter laughed and ended her story 
with a last triumphant twirl of her forelock. 


SCATTER 


256 

“ The best is saved until last,” she said. “ I 
told him I had two roommates and a Koko 
friend, and he said, 4 Very well, Caterpillars, 
ask them to come too, and we will show you 
all over the ship!’ 99 

Taps sent us all rushing off to bed, and we 
settled down to a night of beatific dreams with 
no gloomy forebodings of the blight that would 
fall on us in the morning. 


CHAPTER XIII 


TOURNAMENT 

The next day found Scatter in trouble. The 
morning dawned clear and fair, but not Scat¬ 
ter. If you remember, she had not changed 
her wet jumper the day before, and when she 
woke up on Saturday morning, she had prob¬ 
ably the world’s worst cold in her chest. 

Marge and I gazed upon her with horror 
when she stumbled into Loon Attic after 
Reveille. She couldn’t speak above a whisper, 
and she looked extremely ill.. 

“ Oh, Scatter,” I moaned, “ you have gone 
and done it this time,” and I sat heavily upon 
my trunk with all hope fled. 

Of course I don’t want you to think that I 
wasn’t sorry for Scatter, for I was—awfully 
sorry that she felt so sick. But it was so un¬ 
necessary. I don’t mind holding people’s 
hands if they become sick all unbeknownst to 
themselves and their friends—a good sprained 

257 


258 SCATTER 

ankle or a severed artery, for instance. But 
there was no need for Scatter to have got her¬ 
self into this unpleasing state, and she knew 
it and so did I. 

Of course I should have forcibly changed 

her into a dry jumper myself, but- Oh, 

well, what’s the use! I didn’t, and Scatter was 
a total wreck with a hollow cough and a snuffly 
nose, and it would be a matter of minutes only 
before she was haled away to the infirmary and 
packed into bed without a chance of getting 
anywhere near a tennis court before the first 
of the next week. 

I groaned aloud in the anguish of my rack¬ 
ing thoughts. 

“ Dever bi’d, Frosty,” Scattered snuffled 
hoarsely. “ I’b goi’g to play teddis just the 
sabe. I’ll bake the grade all right.” 

“You won’t get a chance to play tennis to¬ 
day,” I replied hopelessly. “ Don’t you realize 
that the Doctor will put you in the infirmary 
the instant she lays eyes on you? You’re in 
no state of health to be at large, anyhow, my 
girl.” 

Scatter blew her nose violently. 

“ The Doctor was called to Rockla’d last 



TOURNAMENT 259 

dight and is dot expected back udtil this 
evedi’g, and dobody else will dotice be if I ab 
careful dot to talk.” 

I had forgotten about the Doctor, but even 
if she was away, it didn’t help any. 

“You can’t play a tournament match with 
a cold like that, Scat,” I said to her firmly. 
“You’d get pneumonia and die, probably. 
And if you try it, I wall tell Mother Panther. 
She can put you in the infirmary just as well 
as the Doctor can.” 

Scatter was half-dressed, but she dropped 
her jumper on the floor and came over to me. 
Marge, for once in her life, showed some tact 
and melted out of Loon Attic with a mutter 
about our mislaid water pitcher. 

“ Look here, Frosty.” Scatter grabbed me 
by the arm, and I could see that she was all 
excited and very angry. “ If you ever play 
such a bead, low-dowd trick od be, I’ll dever 
speak to you agaid as lo’g as I live. I’b goi’g 
to play teddis to-day if it’s the last thi’g I do 
id this world. A’d you a’d the Doctor a’d 
Bother Padther a’d all the rest of the Cabp 
cad’t stop be. A’d if you dod’t like that, you 
dow what you cad do.” 


260 SCATTER 

“ All right,” I grumbled, somewhat abashed. 
“ Have your own way and see if I care.” 

And so we left it at that, and I felt perfectly 
miserable all morning—worried about Scatter 
and worried about the tennis match. For even 
if Scatter bluffed her way onto the court, and 
there was a mighty good chance that she 
wouldn’t be able to do that, I was very doubt¬ 
ful about the brand of tennis that she would 
play. You know how it is when you have a 
bad cold, and your head is as big as a balloon 
and as unsteady as a whirligig, and your throat 
aches, and you can’t get a deep breath. You 
don’t feel like playing tennis or cribbage or 
anything else. Bed is the place for you, and 
that is where Scatter should have been but 
wasn’t. 

Anyhow, she did get a good long sleep dur¬ 
ing rest hour, although she tossed and turned 
feverishly and coughed hard. I lay wide 
awake and watched her, wondering what ought 
to be done about her and knowing that I would 
probably be just as stubborn as she if I were 
in her place. Peggy Bartlett had an eye on 
her, too, and after rest hour she poked her head 
into Loon Attic and spoke to me. 


TOURNAMENT 261 

“ Honestly, Frosty, Scatter ought not to 
play tennis to-day,” she said. 

And I shook my head. 

“ I know it, Peggy,” I answered, “ but what 
can I do about it? The Doctor is away, none 
of the Counsellors nor Mother Panther has 
noticed that she is sick because she has kept 
out of their way all morning, and the girl is 
determined to play. I can’t stop her, and 
neither can you nor any one else. And after 
all, if she doesn’t play, it literally means hand¬ 
ing the banner to you Hatchets, for there isn’t 
a chance of winning it if we lose this match to¬ 
day.” 

Peggy nodded solemnly. 

“ I know,” she said slowly, “ but Scatter 
does look sick to me.” 

Scatter herself came stumbling into Loon 
Attic at that moment, and Peggy rapidly ef¬ 
faced herself. 

“ Calamity Jane! ” barked Scat crossly. “ I 
could hear what she was saying. I’m just as 
able to play tennis as I ever was. I feel fine, 
honestly I do.” 

“ You don’t look fine,” remarked Marge 
with quite unnecessary truthfulness, as she tied 


262 SCATTER 

her green Hatchet tie with a jerk. “You look 
mighty ill to me.” 

“ Keep quiet! ” I told her fiercely. “ Have 
you no sense at all? ” And Marge stalked 
forth in high dudgeon to join her Hatchet 
playmates, banging the screen door lustily be¬ 
hind her in true Panther fashion. 

Scatter stood up and tried to grin, but it 
wasn’t such a good grin, at that. 

“ Honestly, Frosty, I feel better,” she lied 
triumphantly. “ I think I must have slept that 
cold all off during rest hour.” 

I was sorry for her, she felt so ill, but there 
didn’t seem to be anything that I could do 
about it. 

“ That’s good,” I answered her, laughing 
jovially and wishing to weep. “Tie up your 
old Invincible, my girl, and go beat the 
Hatchets into the middle of next week.” 

And so, for the last time, we fell into line 
with the Raggeds and marched out to the 
tennis courts. And, for the last time, we stood 
opposite the Hatchets, and they sang to us 
and we sang to them. And the crickets chirped 
dryly in the grass by the edge of the courts, 
and the goldenrod and asters spoke sadly of 


TOURNAMENT 263 

the summer all but gone. And I looked at 
the Counsellors all wearing blue ties and felt 
sorry for them because they were neither Rag- 
geds nor Hatchets any more. 

After all the proper songs were sung, we 
sat down quietly on the wire at the back of the 
courts to watch the unimportant matches that 
came before the real match of the afternoon— 
that between Scatter and Sallv Robbins, 
which, being the best, was saved until the last. 
Scatter sat hunched up beside me on the wire, 
and I could feel that she was shivering in the 
hot sunshine. 

“ Cold? ” I asked her curiously. “ Want a 
sweater? ” 

She shook her head. 

“ No, I’m boiling hot,” she answered. “ I 
wish they’d hurry and get these matches over. 
I want to begin.” 

Well, they were over finally—a couple of 
doubles and a singles that brought us Raggeds 
five more points. Every little helps, and we 
felt as if that were a pretty good omen as 
Scatter stepped onto the court and began to 
rally with Sally. 

Koko and Abey had just won their singles 


SCATTER 


264 

match, and they sat down on the spot that 
Scatter had vacated beside me. Happy Jack 
was on the other side of me, her strong brown 
hands clenched on her bare knees, her face a 
mask of excitement. 

“ I’ve been adding averages, Frosty,” she 
said to me. “ I’ve got hold of every record 
that I could find, and if my figures are the 
same as the Counsellors’, we stand a good 
chance for the banner. The only figures I 
couldn’t get were the ones for the swimming 
classes. Miss Palmer hasn’t marked them yet, 
but I know that if we have as many as five 
girls in Class A and if Scatter wins this match, 
we’ll pull through on top.” 

I kept my eye on Scatter, who was rallying 
languidly and wasn’t trying for anything be¬ 
yond her reach. 

“ How many Raggeds do you think we have 
in Class A? ” I asked Happy Jack. 

“ Miss Palmer doesn’t know yet,” she an¬ 
swered. “ Of course you were there already, 
and so were Scatter and Jan. But the rest 
of us that have been working on it this week 
she hasn’t finished marking yet. Seems as if 
two of us must have made it, though.” 


TOURNAMENT 265 

“ Seems as if two of you might have made 
it earlier in the summer and saved us the 
worry,” I answered unkindly. Scatter had 
made a half-try at a lob and let it go by her, 
untouched. 

Happy Jack flushed uncomfortably. 

“We tried as hard as we could, Frosty, but 
some of it isn’t easy.” 

Of course it isn’t easy. It took me two 
summers to get into Class A myself, and I 
have two good legs. It seemed as if all I ever 
did to Happy Jack was hurt her. 

“ Sorry, Jack,” I said contritely. “ I didn’t 
mean to be unreasonable, but I’m worried over 
Scatter. She has such a bad cold, I can’t see 
how she is ever going to last this set, not to 
mention the match.” 

“ I wish there were something I might do to 
help,” Jack spoke a bit wistfully. 

“ Oh, you did your bit in baseball,” I told 
her. “ There’s nothing any of us can do now 
but hold our thumbs and cheer for her for all 
we’re worth.” 

The match was to be the best two sets out 
of three, and the players were to change courts 
every odd game. Miss MacLean was referee- 


266 SCATTER 

ing, perched high on the ladder between the 
courts. 

“ Ready? ” she called at last. 

“ Ready here,” answered Sally. 

“ Right,” snuffled Scatter, and the match 
was on. 

Scatter’s back was to us, and she had the 
first service. 

“ That’s good,” quoth I to Koko and 
Happy. “ If she can only hold her service, 
she’ll walk away with the set.” 

“ Play? ” rasped Scatter hoarsely. 

“ Play! ” replied Sally. 

Scatter’s first service cut the corner for an 
ace. 

“ Fifteen-love,” remarked Miss MacLean 
from the tower. 

It was a good beginning, and it looked as 
if all our worries and fears about Scatter were 
a false alarm. We were rather perturbed to 
have her lose the second point, but her old-time 
service was as good as ever, and she took the 
first game at fifteen. 

“The score stands one game to love, Rag- 
geds leading! ” Miss MacLean played 
tournament tennis at home and liked to have 


TOURNAMENT 267 

all the details of our matches according to 
Hoyle. 

Scatter and Sally changed courts, and Scat¬ 
ter grinned impishly at me over her shoulder 
as she stalked to the other side of the net with 
a triumphant snuffle. 

Sally won her own service. 

“ The games are one-all,” announced Miss 
MacLean sonorously. 

Scatter kept up the good work, and the 
Raggeds cheered ecstatically. 

“ I’ll take it all back, Frosty,” Hatchet 
Peggy called to me, as Scatter won her third 
service, making the score three games to two 
in her favor. “ She must have slept her cold 
off, after all.” 

“ Oh, she’s all right,” I answered, but into 
my heart a cold feeling was creeping, for I 
sensed, rather than saw, that Scatter was 
weakening. She hadn’t let down yet, and, to 
those who did not know her as well as I, she 
seemed to be as strong as ever. But I knew 
that the burst of energy with which she had 
started the match was wearing off and that it 
was only a question of minutes before it would 
have deserted her altogether. Her drives 


SCATTER 


268 

weren’t quite so deep, her service not quite so 
steady, and her face was strangely flushed. 

Koko didn’t notice anything, though. 

“ Oh, this is going to be easy for Scatter,” 
she gloated. “ She always has beaten Sally 
before. She’ll break her service this next 
game and take the set at six-two. You wait 
and see.” 

I grunted and squinted under my hands at 
Scatter. 

Happy Jack moved restlessly beside me. 

“ Do you really think that Scatter is play¬ 
ing up? ” she asked me softly. 

“No,” I answered sadly. “ I think that she 
is slipping, but she may pull through this set. 
Don’t say it aloud, though. The others might 
as well be happy as long as they can.” 

Jack nodded. She is an understanding soul. 

Scatter didn’t break Sally’s service that 
game. Sally kept it to herself at thirty, and 
Scatter only managed to win her own service 
by two deuces and a lucky bounce. 

“ The games stand four games to three, 
Raggeds leading.” Miss MacLean’s voice was 
without feeling, and I felt a shudder pass over 
me to think that only last year she had been an 


TOURNAMENT 269 

enthusiastic Hatchet, fighting out the cham¬ 
pionship with Doris Pritchard, who was now 
playing tennis in the first twenty and too busy 
to come back to Camp even for a visit. 

The two players changed courts, and Scat¬ 
ter paused by the ladder to drink deeply from 
the bucket of water that was there. 

“ That’s the worst thing she could do,” I 
groaned. “ She’ll get a pain as sure as fate.” 

Sally took her own service at love, making 
it four-all, and then she proceeded to break 
Scatter’s service, hold her own, and take the 
set at six-four. 

The players were allowed a short rest be¬ 
tween sets. I threw a sweater over Scatter’s 
shoulders, gave her a lemon to suck, and sat 
her down to rest. She was breathing heavily 
and trying hard not to cough. 

“ Rally around and sing lustily,” I told the 
rest of the Raggeds, “ so that Scatter can 
cough as hard as she wants without any one’s 
hearing her. Perhaps it will make her feel 
better.” 

They did, and Scatter hacked away until her 
face was crimson. 

Man o’ War poked her long person into the 


SCATTER 


270 

ring. In one lean brown paw she was care¬ 
fully carrying some nice red raspberries she 
had gathered by the side of the court. 

“Eat ’em, Scatter,” she said with that shy, 
adoring grin of hers. “ Fruit is good for bad 
throats.” 

Scatter smiled wanly at her little playmate. 

“ Thanks a lot,” she said gratefully. “ They 
taste good, Man o’ War.” And the child re¬ 
tired, pleased and gratified. 

Miss MacLean called “Time!” and Scat¬ 
ter rose slowly to her feet, dropping the 
sweater off her shoulders. 

“ Sorry about that set, Frosty,” she said 
brusquely. “ I’ll do better this time. I 
couldn’t get going, somehow.” 

“ Oh, you haven’t started yet,” I answered 
cheerfully. “ Go in and win. There’s lots of 
time yet.” 

Scatter walked slowly to the service line, 
and my heart was heavy within me. Nothing 
short of a miracle could win for us now. Scat¬ 
ter had stopped before she had begun, and I 
knew that, even if she should win the second 
set, there would be little chance of her lasting 
through a third when she felt as she did. 


TOURNAMENT 271 

“ There’s no hope, I’m afraid,” I confided 
to Happy Jack. “ She ought to be in bed, and 
I simply can’t imagine her winning this match. 
If a miracle were to fall from heaven and waft 
her to victory on golden wings, there would be 
hope. But miracles don’t happen any more. 
You’ll have to resign yourself to seeing the 
Hatchets march off with the banner to-night, 
Happy Jack, and that’s hard on you, your 
first year and all.” 

“ I think that it is harder on you, your third 
year,” she answered. And I think that she 
was right. 

Well, the second set appeared to be an easy 
victory for Sally. Scatter was helpless. Her 
trick drives that used to knick the base line 
were out by inches. Her first serves were in 
the net, her second serves were out. It was 
nerve-wracking work, and I know how help¬ 
less she must have felt, with everything going 
wrong and herself feeling worse and worse 
every minute. 

Sally played like a nice steady machine, and 
with the score four-love it looked as if it were 
all over but the shouting. 

Scatter’s thin face had gone dead white, and 


272 SCATTER 

every freckle on it stood out like a baby sun. 
She was playing doggedly, but her breath 
came in rasping gasps. I could tell that her 
head must be splitting, for she kept turning to 
little Charlotte Hunter who was shacking 
balls, rather than picking them up for herself. 

“ Ball! ” she would call testily with two of 
them lying right at her feet. It was not like 
Scatter at all, and my heart ached for her. 

And then, when all was drear and sad, an 
automobile was heard approaching along the 
cart road that leads into Camp. Scatter was 
about to serve. Her first service was a double 
fault. Love-fifteen! 

She moved slowly to the other court, frown¬ 
ing intensely. The auto came nearer. Scatter 
pulled herself together and served viciously. 
The ball twanged against the tape at the top 
of the net and fell into the wrong court. Scat¬ 
ter bit her lip and tried again. 

“ Out! ” called the linesman. 

“ Love-thirty,” intoned Miss MacLean. 

The car drew up outside the tennis courts. 
Mother Panther stepped around the thicket 
of hemlocks to meet it. Scatter scowled irri¬ 
tably at the interruption. I knew how she felt. 


TOURNAMENT 273 

She wanted that awful match to be over as 
soon as possible so that she could get away 
from every one. 

“ Oh, Sarah, dearie, see who have come to 
see you,” and Mother Panther ushered three 
visitors through the gap in the wire. The first 
was a red-headed replica of Scatter, clad in 
giddy summer sports clothes, and behind her 
were a tall clerical-appearing gentleman and 
the Opium-eater. 

Of course it wasn’t at all according to regu¬ 
lations, and Miss MacLean was very much per¬ 
turbed and put out, but what can you do upon 
the arrival of a girl’s only parent, whom she 
hasn’t seen in three years, but let her go and 
be polite to him? Miss MacLean did so 
grudgingly, and Sally reclined among the 
Hatchets while Scatter stepped up and was 
received into the bosom of her family. 

Presently she disentangled herself. 

“ I have to finish this match, Daddy,” I 
heard her say. “ Then I will show you all 
around Camp and everything.” 

She turned to me. 

“ Come and be introduced, Frosty,” she 
called. “ You can keep the family happy until 


SCATTER 


274 

this is over/’ And I loped up obediently, 
wishing that I might have been left to suffer 
in peace with Ivoko and Happy and the other 
Raggeds. 

Introductions over, Scatter started to re¬ 
turn to her Waterloo. 

“ Frosty, I’m sorry,” she muttered, “ but 
I’ll try to get going. There’s hope yet.” 

The Opium-eater overheard her. 

“ Hold on, there, Poetess,” he said, catching 
her by the arm. “ Finding it hard work, are 
you? ” 

Scatter nodded dumbly, and I found myself 
not admiring his tact. 

“ Well,” he drawled with a provoking smile, 
“ I brought you a present. One good turn 
deserves another, and here’s hoping that this 
will do as good a turn for you as you did for 
me the other day.” 

He handed a small package to Scatter. 

“ Don’t let it frighten Abey,” he remarked, 
with a glance in the general direction of Koko, 
whom he had spotted in the crowd. 

Scatter took the package languidly and 
opened it without showing much interest in its 
contents. She probably thought it was candy. 


TOURNAMENT 275 

It was that shape, anyhow. But one glance at 
the contents of the box brought her up short. 

“Red Panther!” she exclaimed. “Red 
Panther! ” And she clutched the box to her 
and sat abruptly down upon the ground to 
gloat over her gift. We all crowded around to 
see what the thrilling present might be, and, 
sure enough, there he was, red and smooth and 
alluring—the sacred Red Panther from the 
temple of Candor. 

The Opium-eater stood over Scatter and 
grinned complacently. 

“ Like it, Fire-eater? ” he asked, and Scat¬ 
ter’s answer was a complete success, for she 
rose to her feet with a leap and a bound, threw 
her arms about his neck, and gave him a re¬ 
sounding kiss right on his cheek. 

“Like it!” she chortled. “Do I like it! 
Just you wait and see Red Panther win this 
match for the Raggeds. Frosty, sit down here 
and hold him for me. Gently, now, and stroke 
him so. All right. He’s brought us luck; 
that’s his job. Hulloo, Sally, all ready? Let’s 
go. 

And right there on that tennis court in 
Maine a miracle came to pass, as a veritable 



276 SCATTER 

bolt launched from the blue, and Scatter’s 
premonitions were fulfilled by an unbelievably 
dramatic happening. In the space of one mo¬ 
ment she had become a changed girl, and I 
gazed at the Red Panther in my lap, rather 
frightened by his sinister possibilities. If he 
could create such a change in Scatter in such 
a brief space of time, what might he not do to 
me, sitting in my lap so intimately? 

I started to ask the Opium-eater, but he 
had become so engrossed with Scat’s red¬ 
headed sister that we Panthers might have been 
in another world for all he knew or cared. 
Mother Panther was conversing briskly with 
Scatter’s Priceless Parent, so I just stroked 
Red Panther, thankful to be able to watch the 
game undisturbed by the questions of outland- 
ers. 

Scatter stepped briskly to the service line. 

“ Love-thirty, wasn’t it, Miss MacLean? ” 
she inquired brightly. 

“ Yes,” answered Miss MacLean grimly. 
“ And the games are love-four in the second 
set. Are you ready to play again? ” 

“ Oh, quite,” snuffled Scatter cheerfully. 
“ Ready, Sal? ” 


TOURNAMENT 277 

“ Play,” answered Sally, confidence writ 
large all over her person. 

Scatter flashed that first serve over for an 
ace. 

“ Fifteen-thirty.” 

Sally got her racket on the next one but 
netted it. 

“ Thirty-all.” 

Scatter went ahead gaily and took the game 
at thirty. 

Sally held her own service, but Scatter 
didn’t stop grinning, although I rather sus¬ 
pect that she held her mouth open because she 
found it so difficult to breathe through her 
nose. 

The games stood five to one, and then Scat¬ 
ter really buckled down to work. The influ¬ 
ence of Red Panther worked in her like a 
magic leaven. With him in her possession she 
felt she couldn’t lose, and she simply charged 
ahead and took the set from Sally, seven games 
to five. 

The Opium-eater and his ladylove came out 
of their trance sufficiently to say “ Good girl. 
Keep it up.” And immediately they returned 
to a happier land where they were the only 


278 SCATTER 

two inhabitants. Certainly they didn’t realize 
the miracle that was happening before them— 
the complete hypnotizing of a perfectly good 
American girl by an ancient Red Panther 
from a heathen land. 

The Priceless Parent bent a benign look 
upon his younger child and remarked, “ Well 
played, daughter.” 

But Scatter sat herself upon the wire and 
took the Red Panther in her hands, stroking 
him gently and crooning over him as if he were 
alive. 

It’s a funny thing to see a girl believe in 
things like that, and it’s funnier yet to see 
them come true for her. Anyhow, I was just 
as sure of the fact that it was Red Panther, 
and nothing else in the world, that had pulled 
Scatter through that last whirlwind set as I 
was that I was standing on the tennis courts at 
Camp, wishing with all my heart for the match 
to be over and the suspense ended. 

When time was called for the third set, Scat¬ 
ter sprang to her feet, light as thistledown, 
handed Sir Panther to me, and stalked off to 
the court. She did deign to toss me one word 
as she went. 


TOURNAMENT 279 

“ Don’t worry, Frosty,” she remarked 
calmly. “ I’m going to win this set.” 

And, believe it or not, she did win—easily 
and swiftly, with such dash and reserve power 
that even the two lovers had to return to this 
earthly plane to cheer her on her lusty and 
spectacular career. 

Poor Sally did her best. It was hard for 
her to have victory snatched from her by one 
little Red Panther, who couldn’t have under¬ 
stood what it was all about even if you had 
told him. But, fortunately for Sally, she 
didn’t understand the fine points of the situa¬ 
tion, and when Scatter captured match point 
with a roaring forehand drive down the alley, 
Sally ran to the net with only two games to 
her credit and the firm conviction that Scatter 
had either been fooling her or else was the 
world’s most miraculous tennis player. And 
the latter would be right, I guess. 

Of course Scatter and Sally shook hands 
politely and told each other all the right things, 
and we Raggeds simply went wild all over the 
court. The Hatchets were awfully good 
sports and sang to us and sang to Scatter. 

We tried to capture Scatter, but she grabbed 



28 o 


SCATTER 


Red Panther from me with a scathing look (I 
was hurling him into the air at the moment, 
while I shrieked aloud) and rushed off in the 
direction of the Shack without a word to her 
family or any one else. 

“ She’s gone to change her clothes,” I ex¬ 
plained to her father with great presence of 
mind, for I was as surprised as he was at her 
sudden and unceremonious exit. Then I 
rushed after her to see what caused her to act 
like that. 

Happy Jack and Ivoko and most of the 
Raggeds trailed behind me to Loon Attic. 

“ Stay here,” I told them and left them on 
the porch, “ until I see where she is.” 

I found her face down on her bed, crying as 
if her heart would break, the Red Panther 
standing on her pillow beside her outflung 
hand. I had never seen Scatter cry before, 
and I felt embarrassed. 

“ What’s the matter, Scat? ” I asked. “Are 
you sick? ” 

But she only dug her face deeper into the 
pillow and went on crying the more. 

Happy Jack came in quietly and stood by 
my side. 


TOURNAMENT 281 

“ Get her into fresh clothes and leave her 
alone,” she advised sagely. “ She’s got a bad 
cold, and she feels awful. I’ll send the others 
away.” So she did, and I managed to get 
clean, dry clothes on the weeping Scatter and 
tuck her into bed. 

“ There, go to sleep, heroine,” quoth I. 
“ Here’s your Panther and here’s your hanky. 
I’ll go take care of your family while you get 
rested a bit.” 

Scatter achieved a watery smile. 

“I . . . I’m an awful idiot, Frosty,” 

she hiccuped, “ but thanks a lot.” 

So I left her there and went in search of 
her family. The Opium-eater had already 
taken a canoe and wafted his new-found lady¬ 
love from the haunts of man and Panther, but 
the Parent seemed to be very much at loose 
ends. I took him in tow and led him about the 
Camp, first explaining carefully that, after 
such a grueling match as Scatter had played, 
a long and extensive toilette was necessary but 
she would be visible ere long. 

This tale was rather ruined by the sight of 
Sally Robbins out arching a round with Koko, 
but I trusted that the Parent wouldn’t notice 


282 SCATTER 

this coincidence and led him hastily past the 
archery court to the chapel and other points 
of interest. 

He wasn’t a bit distant or distrait as I had 
always imagined bishops at close range to be. 
Not so, but far otherwise, and I found him a 
very pleasing companion in so far as anything 
could be pleasing to me at that harassing mo¬ 
ment, with my roommate and his daughter 
languishing on what might prove to be her 
deathbed and with the fate of the Raggeds still 
hanging in the balance in spite of Scat’s Pan¬ 
ther-inspired victory of the afternoon. 

He was interested in the Raggeds and 
Hatchets and everything to do with Camp, 
and I told him all about the invitation to tea 
on Commander Pond’s ship and how excited 
we were about it, but I kept my mind on what 
I was telling him with an effort. To this day 
he holds firmly, with a twinkle in his Episcopal 
eye, that I assured him in all seriousness that 
“ Abey always reads the Sunday service in the 
chapel and insists that Mother Panther be left 
at home in the Shack because she fidgets so 
in church.” 

Be that as it may, I did my noble best by 


TOURNAMENT 283 

the Bishop, and when Elsie blew First Call, 
I left him to wash up in the office while I tore 
down to Shack Two to weep over the remains 
of my red-headed Scatter. 

But therein I was due for a surprise. When 
I came in sight of the Shack, I heard sounds 
of high mirth from the sleeping-porch, and I 
found Scatter sitting cross-legged on her bed, 
her hair standing every which way, Red Pan¬ 
ther beside her on the blanket. Her thin face 
was a picture of impishness, and she was hold¬ 
ing forth to a credulous audience of small fry, 
giving them a startling and highly-colored ver¬ 
sion of the tale of the Genie and the Panther. 
Her voice was still husky, but her cough 
seemed to be a thing of the past. 

“ I thought you were supposed to be 
asleep,” I remarked severely. 

“ Well, I was,” she answered, aggrieved, 
“ but I woke up, Frosty. It takes a good 
afternoon of exercise to cure a cold like mine. 
I feel fine, honestly I do.” And that time I 
believed her. She looked like a different girl, 
and I drew a long sigh of relief. 

“That’s all there is; there isn’t any more, 
my children,” she told her entranced audience, 


SCATTER 


284 

and they melted away while she slid off the 
bed and joined me in Loon Attic. 

“ What a perfect idiot you must think I am, 
Frosty,” she said soberly. “ I’m awfully sorry 
I made such a baby of myself and all.” 

“ Oh, that’s all right; you couldn’t help it, 
Scatter,” I answered awkwardly. “ Anyhow, 
you played a marvelous match this afternoon.” 

“ Red Panther played it for me, you mean,” 
she corrected me with a laugh, “ and he’s cured 
my cold, too. I told you that he is probably 
the world’s luckiest beast, Frosty. Why, he’s 
even more potent than the old Invincible.” 

I grunted. As I have mentioned before, I 
don’t believe much in charms and fetishes. 


CHAPTER XIV 


THE BANNER 

When Scatter and I started up to the Camp 
House for supper, Happy Jack was limping 
along ahead of us, and Scat paged her loudly: 

“ Oh, Happy, wait a minute! ” And Happy 
did, obligingly. 

“ Have any more averages been published? ” 
we asked in chorus. But Jack shook her head. 

“ No,” she answered. “ Miss Mason and 
Miss Palmer and all the rest of the Counsel¬ 
lors are sitting on the floor in the office, busily 
adding and dividing, and they probably won’t 
know the final score until it’s time for the 
banner to be given out. Anyhow, they’re not 
coming to supper. It’s being sent to them on 
a tray. Imagine adding with one hand and 
eating hash with the other,” she ended with a 
grin. 

“ Wow! ” I exclaimed. “ That means that 
it’s closer than close. If either side had def¬ 
initely won, they would never bother to add 

285 


286 SCATTER 

up all those tennis ladder figures and hiking 
averages and what not. If we win, it will be 
by the skin of our teeth and no more, and I, 
for one, am glad that we are going on that trip 
to Rockland with Commander Pond next 
week. It will be something pleasant to look 
forward to in case we have to lose to-night.” 

And the other two agreed with me ab¬ 
solutely. 

It surely was an unusual situation at Pan¬ 
ther that year. Almost every other summer 
either one side or the other had been so far 
ahead by the beginning of the last counting 
week that it was perfectly obvious which side 
would win and which side hadn’t a chance. Of 
course averages and tennis ladders were added 
into the final score, but the Counsellors didn’t 
have to spend hours checking and re-checking 
to make sure that the figures weren’t two or 
three points out one way or the other, enough 
to make a difference in which side won the 
banner. 

“ I’ll tell you one thing, though,” remarked 
Happy Jack, as we slipped through the 
screened door to the dining-porch. “ I still 
think that the whole thing hinges on the swim- 


THE BANNER 287 

ming classes. If we have five people in Class 
A, we’ll win. If we don’t, the Hatchets will 
win, and that will be that.” 

When it came time for the banner ceremony 
that night, Scatter tucked Red Panther under 
her arm. 

“ He must be there, come what may,” she 
explained a trifle breathlessly. “ For if we 
win, he’s the one that is responsible.” 

I felt breathless, too, as if some one were 
squeezing my ribs and the wind couldn’t get 
into them properly. My throat was dry, and 
my tongue was too big for my mouth. Also 
I felt slightly ill. 

To those who have never seen the banner 
given out at Panther, I will say that it is an 
impressive sight—one which a Panther never 
forgets, once she has been a part of it. 

Scatter’s family was banished to the craft 
work balcony that runs around the Camp 
House. Not being Panthers, they were not 
privileged to be on the floor. 

The Counsellors stood in a row on the hearth 
rug, stunning in their dark blue and white. 
Behind their impassive faces was concealed the 
secret of which side had won the long, even 


288 SCATTER 

contest. I looked beseechingly at Miss Mason, 
hoping that she would make a sign, but her 
face didn’t change. Neither did Miss Palmer’s 
nor Miss MacLean’s. 

The Management and the Doctor stood on 
one side of the Counsellors, and we Raggeds 
took our places on the other side, as we were 
the side that did not hold the banner. 

The Hatchets had the privilege of marching 
into the Camp House with the banner, which 
they did, very impressive and dignified, sing¬ 
ing a marching song. 

When they stood across from us and faced 
us, we sang that Ragged song which is saved 
for banner nights: 

“ Hail, Hatchets! hail, Hatchets! 

Side by side we’ve fought this year. 

Though foes a while, we’ve always held you 
Friends most dear.” 

Then the Hatchets sang to us, and we all 
sat down on the floor, and Mother Panther 
stepped in between us and began to read the 
records of the summer. It seemed to take for¬ 
ever. Of course they all counted for one side 
or the other, but I honestly wished that she 


THE BANNER 289 

might have left them out and said, “ Hatchets 
win ” or “ Raggeds win,” whichever it might 
be. 

Happy Jack had the little notebook in her 
pocket in which she had been adding her scores 
and averages. She took it out now and 
checked it with Mother Panther’s figures. 

“ Hiking. Most miles hiked: individual 
record . . . Peggy Bartlett for the 

Hatchets; team record . . . Hatchet.” 

We applauded stolidly. We had expected 
them to win hiking, so that didn’t bother us 
any. Scatter sat cross-legged beside me, Red 
Panther in her lap. From time to time she 
stroked him gently, her red head bent lovingly 
over him. Up in the gallery the faces of her 
family and their Opium-eater made three 
moons of lightness in the dusk above the 
lamps. 

Mother Panther went on down the long list 
—crew, paddling, basket-ball, nature lore, 
craft work. 

“ Tennis. Most improvement . . . Ellen 
Hunt-Crosby for the Raggeds; tennis cham¬ 
pionship . . . Sarah Atwell for the Rag¬ 
geds ; average for the first singles tennis ladder 


290 SCATTER 

. . . Ragged; second singles ladder . . . 
Hatchet.” 

Man o' War, squatting beside Scatter, be¬ 
gan to braid her fingers, and Koko poked her 
reprovingly from behind. Man o’ War grinned 
nervously and untangled them again. 

Mother Panther was nearing the end of her 
list, and Happy Jack was nodding over her 
little book. Apparently her figures were the 
same as the Management’s. 

“ Swimming classes. They were the last 
thing to be announced, and I was feeling 
worse and worse. 

“ Class C. Twelve Platchets, nine Rag- 
geds.” 

And Mother Panther read their names. 

“ Class B. Seven Hatchets, eight Rag- 
geds.” 

Another list of names. 

“ Class A.” I rose to my knees and 
clutched Scatter by her arm tightly, hardly 
conscious that I was doing it. Happy Jack 
stuck her pencil in her mouth and fixed her 
eyes on Mother Panther like gimlets. Scatter 
continued to stroke Red Panther, but I could 
feel her muscles taut under my hand. 


THE BANNER 291 

“For the Hatchets . . Mother Pan¬ 
ther was tantalizingly slow. She adores a 
dramatic situation and makes the most of every 
one. “ Three girls are in Class A. Captain 
Robbins, Peggy Bartlett, and Margery Wood- 
war d.” 

We sighed deeply. Now the moment was 
at hand when we would know all, when we 
would be raised to the crest of the wave or be 
dashed to the nethermost depths. 

“ Class A for the Raggeds . . . Captain 
Frost, Sarah Atwell, Janice Taylor. Of 
course we knew those already.” Mother Pan¬ 
ther paused provokingly and cleared her 
throat. Happy Jack bit through her pencil 
with a crack, and she bit her tongue, too, prob¬ 
ably, for she gave an unhappy little cry. Ap¬ 
parently she had given up all hope. Mother 
Panther went on: 

“. . . And Ellen Hunt-Crosby and 

Eleanor Jackson.” 

A great wave of feeling swept over me, and 
I sat back in a heap on the floor, not knowing 
whether to laugh or cry. But there was no 
time to do either. Mother Panther brought 
Sally and me to the middle of the floor, and, 


292 SCATTER 

after she had made an appropriate speech, the 
banner changed hands. Sally was a wonderful 
sport, and she said just the right thing, and I 
answered her somehow, and we all sang: 

“ Though the Raggeds always fight for their flag of 
cherry red, 

And the Hatchets love their colors, their own green 
that waves o’erhead, 

Still both own the White and Blue, and all honor 
shall we pay, 

While with spirit brave and true we all join in 
loyal lay.” 

And then we were all marching down the 
path through the thronging woods, we Rag¬ 
geds in front as befitted the holders of the 
banner, with the Hatchets, Management, and 
Counsellors behind us. As we marched, we 
sang the song that is always sung at that 
moment: 

“ Oh, we are the Panthers, we’re Campers tried and 
true; 

See us come along, some forty strong. . . .” 

We took the long way to Shack Two, down 
the wide path to the beach and around by 
Shack One, where the banner would not be 


THE BANNER 293 

seen for another year at least, then up onto 
the porch of Shack Two, and around to the 
door of Loon Attic. The Hatchets stood on 
the ground and kindly held flashlights for us 
Raggeds while we placed the banner’s pole in 
the rusty holder that hadn’t been used since 
Miss Palmer was Captain and had lived there 
with the banner outside her door. 

And then we all sang and sang all the old 
songs over and over again, while the stars 
seemed near enough to touch the tips of the 
hemlocks and the loon joined in our chorus 
with wild laughter from the lake. 

At last the bugle blew Tattoo, and every 
one melted away from our doorway but Scat¬ 
ter and me. We stood by the banner, strangely 
silent now that all was over. I fingered its 
dingy white folds with reverent fingers. It 
seemed hardly possible that it was really hang¬ 
ing there outside Loon Attic. Scatter and I 
and the others had worked for it so hard and 
so long. Then I had a sobering thought. 

“ Scatter, do you realize? ” I asked her 
solemnly. “ If it hadn’t been for Man o’ War 
and Happy Jack, we Raggeds wouldn’t have 
won this banner at all this year.” 


294 SCATTER 

Scatter stood silent for a moment in the 
starlight. Then she chuckled impishly. 

“ You’re forgetting Red Panther, Frosty,” 
she said. “ He ought to be hung up beside the 
banner as an omen and a sign for all good 
Raggeds to steer themselves by in future 
years.” 

I laughed, too, glad to feel the tension re¬ 
laxed at last. 

“ Well,” I said, as we turned into Loon 
Attic to undress and to condole with our 
Hatchet Marge, “ we’ll make him our most im¬ 
portant mascot for next year.” 

And then Scatter had a devastating thought. 

“ Frosty,” she exploded with a gasp of 
recollection, “ do you remember w 7 hat w r e 
promised Mother Panther if the Raggeds won 
the banner to-night? ” 

Marge went out onto the sleeping-porch, 
and I looked at Scatter inquiringly. All 
thoughts of anything but the Raggeds and the 
banner had been wafted from my head as if 
they had never been. 

“ What are you talking about? ” I asked 
her, all agog. 

“ That we would come back here next 


THE BANNER 295 

summer as Junior Counsellors,” she answered. 
“ Had you really forgotten that, Frosty? ” 

I truly had, and I stood aghast as the re^ 
membrance came flooding over me with the 
thought of all that it involved—no more Rag- 
geds, no more banner, no more Loon Attic . . . 

. . And no more Invincible!” I told 

Scatter sadly. 

But she tugged at her forelock and smiled 
contentedly. 

“ Lll have it dyed dark blue and I’ll wear 
it every day,” she said, “and, Frosty, think 
what fun we’re going to have, turning young 
excursionists like Ellen Hunt-Crosby into 
Panthers like Man o’ War.” 


THE END 





















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